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L161—O-1096 





JOHN MARTIN, PAINTER 
HIS LIFE AND TIMES 











th. hit” 


From a Miniature painted by Charles Muss. (In the possession of 
Colonel Bonomi.) 


[Frontispiece 


JOHN MARTIN, PAINTER 
HIS LIFE AND TIMES 


By 


MARY L. PENDERED 


Author of ‘The Book of Common Joys,” ‘‘ The Fair Quaker,” etc. 


With 20 Illustrations and a Folding Map 


NEW YORK: 
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 


681, FIFTH AVENUE 
1924 


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The Author desires to acknowledge gratefully the 
valuable help she has received from Mr. W. Roberts, the 
Baron and Baroness de Cosson, Colonel J. I. Bonomi, 
C.B.E., Mrs. Stephen Tayler, Mr. Alfred Brewis, Mr. W. 
Hardcastle, Mr. Thomas Hunt Martin, Mr. W. H. Ryland, 
Mr. M. T. Wigham, Mr. W. A. Cunningham, Mr. Ralph 
Thomas, Mr. Arthur Sopwith, Miss Fanny Bullen, Mrs. 
G. A. Anderson, Miss M. M. Scaife, Mr. Thomas Clemitson, 
Miss J. A. Middleton, and others. 

She also wishes to thank the proprietors of the Newcastle 
Weekly Chronicle for permission to quote from Mr. Leopold 
Martin’s Reminiscences; the Authorities of the British 
Museum for permission to photograph John Martin’s pictures ; 
and the Curator of the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-on- 


Tyne, for the fine reproduction of the portrait exhibited 
there. 









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CONTENTS 


List oF ILLUSTRATIONS 


FOREWORD. 


CHAPTER I 


Fenwick Martin, tanner, fencer, rover. His wife and family of 
four sons and a daughter. Eccentricity of the eldest and 
insanity of the third son. The attempt to burn down 
York Minster. Literary and artistic aspirations, culmin- 
ating in the youngest boy, John. 


CHAPTER II 


John Martin’s boyhood at Haydon Bridge and early attempts 
at art. His migration to London in 1806 and life with 
Boniface and Charles Musso. His marriage in 1809, while 
employed at Collins’s glass and china factory near Temple 
Bar. His first picture, a landscape, exhibited at the 
Royal Academy in 1811. First subject picture, Sadak, 
exhibited there in 1812. The tragedy of his third picture. 


CHAPTER III 


John Martin’s next two pictures, Adam’s First Sight of Eve 
and The Expulsion, exhibited at the Royal Academy and 
British Institution in 1813. His home in Marylebone 
High Street. Some glimpses of old Marylebone; the deer 
forest and hunting lodge, village, Manor House and Farm. 
Dairy-keepers and farmers of St. Pancras and Kentish 
Town. Duels on Primrose Hill. Marylebone Spa. The 
Founders of the Botanical Gardens. The Golden Dust- 
men of Victorian London. The painting of Joshua Com- 
manding the Sun to Stand Still. Prince Leopold of Belgium 
and the Princess Charlotte. Martin’s three first children 
born. 


CHAPTER IV 


John Martin’s exhibited pictures between 1814 and 1818. His 
several changes of address, and distinguished neighbours. 
Love of chess, and games generally. His irascible temper. 
Friendship with Leigh Hunt’s brother. Aninterview with 
Turner, Hazlitt’s criticism of Martin’s pictures. 


vn 


PAGE 
xi 


13 


19 


36 


61 


77 








Vill Contents 


CHAPTER V 


Martin’s change of address. The Fall of Babylon exhibited 
at the British Institution and sold for four hundred 
guineas. Breakfast with Sir Walter Scott and his visit 
to Martin’s studio, to view the picture Macbeth. Martin’s 
resentment against the Royal Academy, and criticism of 
its methods. Friendship with Leslie. Sir George Beau- 
mont, art patron and connoisseur. Story about Wilkie. 
Visit of Mrs. Siddons and Charles Young to the studio. 


CHAPTER VI 


The sensation created by Belshazzar’s Feast and its reception 
by the critics. Charles Lamb’s criticism. Exhibition at 
the British Institution Galleries and premium of two 
hundred guineas awarded to Martin. Coloured trans- 
parency shown in the Strand. Other pictures between 


1821-27; The Destruction of Pompeii, Seven Plagues of 


Egypt, Creation, Deluge, etc. Martin’s family life at 
time. His landscapes. French views of his art. 


CHAPTER VII 


Friends and new acquaintances, Forgotten celebrities. The 
Mummy and Frankenstein, The songs of other days. 
Braham and his beautiful daughter. Tom Moore and 
Samuel Lover. Tom Hood and his homes. William 
Godwin and Bunyan’s Grave. The Landseers, Harrison 
Ainsworth, Charles Dickens, George Cruikshank and 
Douglas Jerrold. 


CHAPTER VIII 


The three ‘ Deluge’ pictures. Visit of Cuvier to Martin’s 
studio and his approval of the phenomena in The Deluge. 
Martin’s lengthy descriptions of his paintings. King 
William IV.’s private view of The Fall of Nineveh. 
Prince Albert’s appreciation and suggestions. Other 
pictures between 1821-41. Foreign honours, medals, 
diplomas and gifts from reigning monarchs. Visits of 
the Buonapartes, Lady Blessington and Count D’Orsay 
to his studio. The Deluge pictures, and enormous output 
between 1823-50. 


CHAPTER IX 


Martin becomes an engraver. His substantial printing 
establishment at Allsop Terrace. Two thousand guineas 
for twelve illustrations to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Ac- 
counts with print-sellers in London and other large cities. 
Sales in the United States, China and Japan. [Illustra- 
tions to the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress. Isabella 
Martin, her father’s secretary. Anecdote of Wilkie. 


PAGE 


88 


I02 


195 


131 


148 





Contents 





CHAPTER X 


The Annuals and John Martin’s picturesinthem. His amazing 
output of work during the years 1821-28. Friendship of 
the Martins and Tenniels. Marriage of Leopold with 
John Tenniel’s sister. Change of address between 1824 
and 1828. The Pot Luck Club. Martin as a ‘ radical 
revolutionary.’ Story of Hogg and Mrs. Burns. Martin’s 
walks in the country with Ralph Thomas. 


CHAPTER XI 


John Martin at the height of his popularity. Frith’s tribute 
to his personal appearance. The ‘ Radical Hat.’ Con- 
temporary appreciation of Martin’s work. Gift of Sévres 
china from King Louis Philippe. 


CHAPTER XII 


Martin’s schemes for the improvement of London. His 
published plans and maps for the disposal of sewage, for 
a pure water supply, for the Thames Embankment... Ap- 
proval of Thomas Sopwith, the famous engineer. Letters 
from distinguished persons in sympathy with his sugges- 
tions. The formation of a company to carry them out. 
The usual obstructions. Mr. Facing-both-ways and his 
kind. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Dark days for the Martin family. John materially injured 
by the bad state of the Copyright Laws, finds that the 
£20,000 brought him by engravings has all melted away. 
He is in debt and distress. His schemes for improving 
London have failed. Letters to the Queen and Ministers 
ignored. His nephew Richard commits suicide in his 
house. The Coronation picture revives his fortunes. 
He resolves upon trying a branch of art new to him—a life- 
size historical picture—of which we hear no more. Quite 
free from debt and making money again in 1843. 


CHAPTER XIV- 


Some of John Martin’s friends and acquaintances, Luke 
Clennell, Sir Charles Wheatstone, J. K. Brunel, George 
Stephenson and others. A trial trip on one of the first 
engines. Letters to Prince Albert and others. Martin’s 
religious views. His further inventions—lighthouses, 
fireproof ships, etc. Exhibition of science and machinery. 
The old Panoptican. Household Words and Martin 


Tupper. 


PAGE 


163 


186 


196 


216 


226 


Contents 


CHAPTER XV 


John Martin’s death in the Isle of Man, 1854. His three last 


pictures, known as the ‘ Judgment’ pictures, left to a 
cousin, Mrs. Wilson. Their exhibition all over the world. 
Press opinions. Obituary noticein the Observer. Agree- 
ment with Thomas Maclean for the engraving rights ; 
afterwards cancelled. 


CHAPTER XVI 


The family of John Martin. Connections with Sir John 


Tenniel, Sir Frederick Bridge, Allan Cunningham and 
Joseph Bonomi. Charles Martin the portrait painter. 
John Martin’s home at Chelsea. The fresco on the wall. 
Sale of stained glass windows painted by him. His 
burial-place at Kirk Braddon, Isle of Man. 


CHAPTER XVII 


What is to be the future verdict on John Martin’s work ? 


Some verdicts of the past. Heine’s comparison of him 
with Berlioz. Article upon him in The Artist of tgor. 
Summing up and last words. 





PAGE 


245 


258 


268 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


JOHN MARTIN; FROM A MINIATURE PAINTED BY 


CHARLES MOSS ~ - - - Frontisprece 
Facing Page 
JOHN MARTIN IN EARLY LIFE - - =e ©: 
RICHMOND PARK - - - - - 48 
JOSHUA COMMANDING THE SUN TO STAND STILL - 62 
THE FALL OF BABYLON - - - - 88 
BELSHAZZAR’S FEAST - - ~ - - I02 
THE DESTRUCTION OF HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII - 106 
THE DELUGE - - - - - - 132 
LEOPOLD I., KING OF THE BELGIANS - - - 140 
THE DESTRUCTION OF PHARAOH’S HOST - - 146 
THE GREAT DAY OF HIS WRATH - - - 148 
JOHN MARTIN - - - > - 160 
ADAM AND EVE EXPELLED FROM PARADISE - - 168 
THE REPENTANCE OF NINEVEH - - - 176 
FACSIMILE LETTER FROM THE DUC DE BROGLIE TO 
JOHN MARTIN - - . - - 1094 
DESIGN FOR THE THAMES EMBANKMENT - - 200 
JOHN MARTIN IN HIS STUDIO - - - - 208 


KIRK BRADDAN CHURCH, ISLE OF MAN, BURIAL-PLACE 
OF JOHN MARTIN” - - - - - 250 





xii List of Illustrations 


THE PLAINS OF HEAVEN - - - - 254 


ISABELLA MARY MARTIN, JOHN MARTIN'S ELDEST 
DAUGHTER - - - - - - 258 


PLAN OF THE GREAT METROPOLITAN CONNECTING 
RAILWAY AND PUBLIC WALK, BY JOHN MARTIN, 
SEPT., 1845 - - - - - 306 


FOREWORD 


An old memoir of surpassing interest has fallen into my 
hands. It ran through the columns of a newspaper thirty 
years ago, and was written by one Leopold Charles Martin, 
author of Illustrations of British Costume from William I. 
to George III. and other works. Written on no definite 
plan, vaulting lightly backward and forward in its dates, 
it rambles agreeably through about fifty years in the reigns 
of George III., George IV., William IV., and Victoria, dis- 
coursing intimately, in the inflated language of its time, 
about a number of great men and women, and the London 
in which they lived. 

It has no form to speak of; it is diffuse, chaotic, and 
somewhat confusing ; but it is, nevertheless, vividly coloured 
and alive, painting with no uncertain hand a picture of the 
city that lay amidst green fields and market-gardens, 
peopled by those famous painters and writers whose names 
are household words, and who are presented to us in a wealth 
of anecdote in very clear and convincing perspective. 
We read of Scott, Dickens, Turner, Landseer, Hood, Moore, 
Campbell, Hogg, Wilkie, Godwin, Bartolozzi, Leigh Hunt ; 
with Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Fry, the Hon. Caroline Norton, 
Letitia E. Landon, Madame Vestris, and a host of others, 
about whom the writer gossips pleasantly. 

The subject of this sister is the writer’s father, John 





14 Foreword 


Martin, who once ranked (as we read in the Magazine of 
the Fine Arts for 1833) ‘‘ among the greatest geniuses of all 
time,’’ and whose work, according to Chambers’ Encyclo- 
paedia of 1891, “ divided the suffrages of the many between 
Martin and Turner.’”’ It is scarcely necessary to say which 
of the two rivals thus placed in competition for public 
favour received the laurel wreath. The name of Turner 
is now known to everyone: the name of Martin is forgotten. 
We bow before the verdict of Time, but let us not forget 
that such verdicts have been reversed; that art has its 
fashions and critics are fallible. 

It is nothing new to see a star emerge from the clouds 
of oblivion to shine in the firmament of art. Whether this 
may ever happen to John Martin, who can say? Art 
critics would probably deny the possibility, basing their 
judgment on certain technical flaws from which John 
Martin was not free. It is a question upon which I am 
entirely unqualified to venture an opinion, but I would 
humbly submit my view that, when a man shows himself 
to be gifted with the imaginative power to conceive a 
sublime subject, and the creative power to execute his 
conception in such a form that it can impose emotions of 
awe and wonder on the unimaginative crowd, that man 
must be gifted with uncommon genius. Whether or not 
he succeeds in being an immortal artist is another matter, 
depending, perhaps, on further qualifications. 

But my business is with the man rather than the artist ; 
with his home, his friends and many distinguished acquaint- 
ances, who are so sharply outlined by his son. His 
character alone is worthy of some study, and to that study 





Foreword 15 


much intimate knowledge is lent by another old memoir 
(in manuscript) upon which I have been so fortunate as to 
alight. Written by a contemporary, one Ralph Thomas, 
Serjeant-at-Law, a very loyal friend and admirer of the 
artist, it shows, even more convincingly than his son’s 
* Reminiscences,’ the strong individuality of John Martin, 
his undoubted power over the minds of all who were brought 
into immediate contact with him. That he was, apart 
from his genius, a man of very remarkable and exceptional 
character is incontestably proved by this evidence of one 
who knew him thoroughly, his weaknesses as well as his 
strength, and who had no desire but to draw of him a true, 
not unduly coloured, picture. 

Martin’s schemes for the improvement of London are 
alone worth noting ; his claims as an inventor might reason- 
ably have brought him fame had they not been eclipsed by 
the power of his art. It is said that he was the first to 
propose a plan for the Thames Embankment and another 
for supplying Londoners with pure drinking water. He also 
conceived the idea of an underground railway. There can 
be no doubt that he had a scientific side to his imaginative 
and creative brain. 

Strange to say, there was a very decided streak of 
insanity in his family. His brother Jonathan, in a fit of 
religious frenzy against the Church of England, attempted 
to burn down York Minster, and very nearly succeeded. 
William, the eldest brother, was so eccentric that he barely 
escaped the asylum in which Jonathan ended his days. 
John was wont to say, in despondent moods, that two of 
his brothers were mad and the third half mad, so that no 








16 | Foreword 





wonder folk concluded he was mad too! But there is no 
evidence to show that he was anything but sound of mind, 
and we do not find a single suggestion to the contrary in 
contemporaneous literature; unless we except Heine's 
classification of him, with Berlioz, as a ‘‘ fou de genie.” The 
religious bias so pronounced in his work, the extraordinary 
imagination which made him visualise clearly and paint 
vividly scenes of mysterious awe and horror, never carried 
him beyond the bounds of reason. He was a great walker, 
a great fencer, fond of games, and altogether normal in his 
daily life. It is impossible to find any sign of eccentricity 
in his character or conduct. 5 

In old houses to-day you may come across engravings, 
often spotted with fly-marks and mildew, generally framed 
in maple-wood and hung in bedrooms, of the works of John 
Martin. You may remember having seen them—The 
Deluge, The Fall of Nineveh, The Day of Wrath, Belshazzar’s 
Feast—but the name of the artist will be unfamiliar to 
you. The original paintings were hung in the Exhibitions 
of the Royal Academy and in many of the larger art galleries 
of Britain. They were bought by kings and princes, who 
lavished upon the artist magnificent presents. From 
Nicholas I. of Russia, Louis Philippe of France, Frederic 
William of Prussia, and Leopold I. of Belgium he received 
medals, rings, jewelled snuff-boxes, and other valuables. 
He was made historical painter to the Princess Charlotte 
of Wales (whatever that may mean), and member of the 
Academies of Brussels, Antwerp, and Scotland. 

His pictures were said to “reveal a greatness and 
grandeur which was never even dreamed of by men until 





Foreword 17 


agree stnnnrinen ao pnrertet anne 0 — _ filled achiet 





they first flashed, with electric splendour, upon the un- 
expecting public,’’ and Wilkie the artist described Bel- 
shazzar’s Feast as ‘a phenomenon.’ Charles Lamb, who 
devoted the greater part of his essay on The Imaginative 
Faculty to a severe criticism of this work, falling foul of his 
figures and grouping, wrote of him: 

“His towered structures are of the highest order of the 
material sublime. Whether they were dreams, or tran- 
scriptions of some older workmanship—Assyrian ruins 
restored by this mighty artist—they satisfy our most 
stretched and craving conceptions of the glories of the 
antique world.” 

And Bulwer Lytton was even more enthusiastic. In his 
book England and the English we find : 

“Martin, as a painter, is, perhaps, the most original 
genius of his age. He has taken a range, if not wholly new, 
at least rarely traversed in the vast air of religious con- 
templation. He has made the Old Testament—with its 
traditional grandeur, its solemn shadows and ancestral 
terrors—his own element and appanage. . . . Vastness is 
his sphere, yet he has not lost or circumfused his genius in 
its space; he has chained and wielded and measured it at 
his will. . . . In conception he is more original, more self- 
dependent than either Raphael or Michael Angelo. They 
perfected the style of others; Martin has borrowed from 
none. Alone and guideless, he has penetrated the remote 
“caverns of the past and gazed on the primeval shapes of the 
gone world.” 

There is much more in the same strain ; and a critic in 
the Edinburgh Review echoed it : 

B 





18 Foreword 


— 


“That which chiefly distinguishes Mr. Martin from all 
other artists,” he wrote, “is his power of depicting the vast, 
the magnificent, the terrible, the brilliant, the obscure, the 
supernatural, the beautiful. These are great and noble 
elements, and are used here (Belshazzar’s Feast) with a 
masterly hand. No painter has ever, like Martin, repre- 
sented the immensity of space—none like him made archi- 
tecture so sublime through vastness. No painter like him 
has made light pour down in dazzling floods from heaven 
and painted the darkness visible of infernal deeps.”’ 

Even. Ruskin, who did not admire his work, wrote of 
Martin (Stones of Venic , vol. iii.) : 

“‘ T believe that the four painters who had, and still have, 
the most influence on the ordinary Protestant Christian 
mind are Carlo Dolci, Guercino, Benjamin West, and John 
Martin. Raphael, much as he is talked about, was, I 
believe, in fact rarely looked at by religious people. Buta 
Magdalen of Dolci, with a tear on each cheek, or a Guercino 
Christ and St. John, or a Scripture illustration by West, or 
a dark cloud with a flash of lightning in it by Martin, rarely 
fails of being very deeply felt.” 

Well, mediocrity does not, as a rule, make itself very 
deeply felt. And I submit that it is no credit to us, as a 
nation, that the name of John Martin is to-day almost 
unknown. 

Mary L. PENDERED, 


John Martin, Painter, 
His Life and Times 


CHAPTER I 


Fenwick Martin, tanner, fencer, rover. His wife and family of 
four sons and a daughter. Eccentricity of the eldest and 
insanity of the third son. The attempt to burn down York 
Minster. Literary and artistic aspirations, culminating in 
the youngest boy, John. 

THERE is, perhaps, nothing more mysterious and perplexing 

than the sudden advent of irrepressible talent into an 

ordinary family. The word ‘irrepressible’ is used with 
intent, for it is the nature of ordinary families to attempt 
the repression of such talent when it appears. It is seldom 
recognised at first, and almost always suspect. The child 
who is odd, who shows strange tastes and moods, is not 
generally, to his parents, sisters and brothers, the swan of 
the proverb; but rather a poor, foolish, exasperating 
goose, to be, if possible, teased and crushed out of his 
foolishness. And the duller the family, the greater its 
dismay at, and misunderstanding of, the changeling born 
into it. 

For the genius is sometimes born in dull families, defying 
the doctrine of heredity and supporting the doctrine of re- 
incarnation, Musical genius a before now, cropped up 





20 John Martin, Painter, 


in families that have been satisfied for generations with the 
hymn tunes ground out of a wheezy harmonium every 
Sunday by a player who scorns the bass part as superfluous ; 
great painters have sprung from simple folk accustomed to 
rest admiring eyes on graveyard scenes in garish colouring 
and maidens embracing prayer-books with upturned eyes. 
It is not the rule, but neither is it the exception, to find 
these freaks. History is well supplied with them. 

John Martin’sfather, William Fenwick Martin, was born in 
Cumberland, where some cousins named Walton owned lead- 
mines, and other members of the family lived about Hexham. 
There is, or was, in Hexham churchyard tombstones of two 
great-uncleswho attained theages of 104 and 108 respectively. 
They were connected with the Fenwicks of Bywell, about 
which family many romantic legends were attached. John’s 
mother, Isabella Thompson, was the daughter of a small 
landed proprietor at the Lowland’s End, in the neighbour- 
hood of Haydon Bridge. Her mother was Anne Ridley, 
said to be descended, through Nicholas Ridley, from the 
martyr bishop. Miss Thompson’s parents did not approve 
of her ‘ somewhat wild suitor,’ so he persuaded her to elope, 
and she rode behind him on a pillion to Gretna Green, where 
they were married.! They had thirteen children, only five 
of whom lived. 

We know too little about the respective families of 
Fenwick Martin and his wife, the father and mother of 
John, to be able to say whether there had previously been 
any germs of artistic desire in them ; but it was certainly 


+ Vide John Martin’s autobiographical notes, 





His Life and Times 21 
not a dull circle into which the talented boy was born. 
Fenwick must have been a lively fellow, capable, adventur- 
ous, and high-spirited. We hear of him first as a journey- 
man tanner at Bardon Mill, in the parish of Haltwhistle, 
Northumberland, and then as foreman at an extensive 
tannery in Bridgehouse Yard, a short distance from the 
town of Ayr. He lived in a house at the end of Brig o’ 
Doon (Burns’s Bonnie Doon) for a time, but left Ayr during 
the American War. He enlisted, but was hurt in quelling a 
mutiny, and afterwards took a public-house in Hartley, 
Northumberland; but he did not stay there long, and we 
find him next at Newcastle-on-Tyne. After being wood- 
- man to a Mr. Tulip of Fallowfield he went to Highside, near 
Hexham,! and thence to East Lands-End at Haydon Bridge, 
where his youngest son, John, was born. 

According to the chronicle of Serjeant Thomas (which 
he affirms was taken down from the lips of John Martin, 
and afterwards corrected by him), Fenwick Martin had 
some ado to get a living for himself and family, being such 
a veritable ‘rolling stone.’ ‘“ By birth,” says John, “ my 
station could scarcely have been humbler than it was, and 
when, at the age of fourteen, I had the strongest desire to 
become an artist, my father’s means were very scanty. 
He had but a small pension, having been, when only three 
months in the Service, wounded in quelling a mutiny. He 
was a powerful man, of dauntless resolution, and an expert 
swordsman before he became asoldier. After his discharge 


t Where he lived in Old Globe Yard on the Battle Hill and 
taught the sword and single-stick exercise. 





22 John Martin, Painter, 





he was generally at home, with little employment, so he 
could not afford to educate me in the arts.” 

This is the only record we find of Fenwick Martin as a 
soldier, but a further statement by his son, quoted by 
Serjeant Thomas, bears out other reports of his roving and 
adventurous disposition. In this John declares that his 
father would have been one of Robin Hood’s men had he 
lived at that time—he so liked being in the woods—and 
that he travelled all over the country to get the kind of 
work he preferred and see what he wanted to see. He 
once invested part of his wife’s fortune in wares and travelled 
the country as a pedlar, while on another occasion he 
turned drover for the sake of driving cattle to London and 
seeing the great city. This disposition, his son adds, kept 
the family always exceedingly poor. 

It is elsewhere stated that Fenwick Martin was a good- 
looking fellow, bold, active, and ‘‘ the best swordsman in 
the kingdom ; not afraid to face any man in the world as 
a fencer or pugilist.”” We are not told whether his wound 
interfered at all with his swordsmanship, but as it is known 
that at one time he actually earned his living by giving 
fencing lessons, it may reasonably be inferred that this was 
after he received his pension and gave up his trade as 
tanner. 

In any case, we may Safely conclude that Fenwick 
Martin was neither dull nor commonplace, and his wife even 
less so, judging from the little evidence wehave of her. It 
was, indeed, probably from her side that the eccentricities 
of her sons derived; for she is said to have prophesied to 
a niece, who nursed her on her death-bed, that her family’s 





His Life and Times 23 


name would sound from pole to pole, and that her first- 
born, William, had ‘a god-like soul’; and she heard 
heavenly music the night before she died, which she wished 
her family to hear, but would not have them awakened lest 
it was intended, “‘ by the Heavenly Will,” for her ears alone. 
From which we may assume that she was possessed of 
certain qualities liable to degenerate into religious fanaticism 
and morbid imaginings. 

Out of her large family she managed to rear only four 
sons and a daughter. We hear little of the latter, but the 
four brothers were all highly individualised, and showed a 
definite tendency towards self-expression in different forms. 
William drew and engraved on wood a very striking portrait 
of himself, besides other woodcuts with which he embellished 
his amazing pamphlets. Both he and Richard wrote what 
they conceived to be poetry, by the yard, and they all 
gave to the world their autobiographies. John, indeed, 
declared that he had a passion for reading autobiography, 
and justified it reasonably enough. 

“Tf a man has accomplished anything worth talking 
about,” he said, ‘‘ I like to know the how and why he did 
it: to know him, and to know him thoroughly. And how 
can you know him thoroughly without an acquaintance 
with his early history, cogitations, hopes and fears, crosses 
and joys, aids and obstructions? All this you learn best 
from himself. If he worked miracles, it is advantageous to 
know how to set about them and to trace the steps of his 
progress ; to contemplate the boy Franklin secretly trying 
his strength at an article, or the boy Burns at the plough 
stringing rhymes together. To the self-revelations of 





24 John Martin, Painter, 


autobiography—call them vanity if you choose—we are much 
indebted. No reading incites more to noble emulation.” 

It is a pity that, in spite of this opinion, he wrote no 
autobiography worth the name; the sole account of him- 
self ever published (which will be discussed in the next 
chapter) being very scant and written from memory in his 
later years. He seems to have been the only one of the 
four brothers who did not attempt to elucidate himself in 
a pamphlet. And he was certainly the only one who 
“accomplished anything worth talking about.” 

William, the eldest of the family, wrotea large number 
of tracts, which he called philosophical treatises. Their 
titles, and the title that he gave himself, ‘‘ Philosophical 


’ 


Conqueror of all Nations,’”’ are sufficient to prove his un- 
balanced intellect, but he seems to have been harmless 
enough and sane on every point save that of his own im- 
portance. Mania being an acute form of egoism, we could 
hardly confine all its victims without putting about half 
the world under restraint ; but few people will doubt that 
William Martin was qualified for an asylum after reading 
such stuff as here follows : | 

‘“ The Christian Philosophers’ Explanation of the General 
Deluge and the Proper Cause of the Different Strata ; 
wherein it is clearly demonstrated that one Deluge was the 
cause of the Whole, which Divinity proves that God is not 
a Liar and that the Bible is strictly True.” 

“Diamond cut Diamond. The Defeat of Impostors by 
Common Sense Philosophy. To Bishops, Priests, Jews and 
Gentiles and all the World.” 

“The Thunder Storm of Dreadful Forked Lightning. 





His Life and Times 25 


God’s Judgment against all False Teachers that cause the 
People to Err, and those that are led by them are destroyed, 
according to God’s Word. Including an account of the 
Railway Phenomenon, the Wonder of the World.”’ 

Was this Stephenson’s new invention? The pamphlet 
is dated 1836 and ‘‘ The Rocket ’”’ made its first journey in 
1829, the Liverpool and Manchester Railways being opened 
in 1830. 

But perhaps the maddest of William’s titles was 
“William Martin, Philosophical Conqueror of All 
Nations. Also a Challenge for all College Professors. To 
prove this Wrong and themselves Right, and that Air is 
not the great Cause of all things animate and inanimate. 
I say boldly that it is the Spirit of God, and God Himself, 
as the Scripture says God is a spirit and that spirit was 
never created nor made, or how could there be any creation ? 
This is clear to anyone that has Common Sense.”’ 

Mr. Richard Welford, author of Men of Mark ‘twixt 
Tyne and Tweed, states that he has in his possession one 
hundred and forty-eight of these delectable pamphlets, and 
we may reasonably conclude that they do not represent the 
whole collection. Some of them were in verse—such verse 
as we find below: 

“Martin has rushed out on a sudden, like a lion from his den ; 
And the odds goes against him—it is a horse to a hen. 
Cheer up, you Northumberland and British bards that can use 


the pen 
And show i divine wisdom for the ae of all men. 


Cheer up, you Batons, your Arla ert has the battle won, 
All the ede cannot penetrate the celestial armour he has him 
upon.” 





26 John Martin, Painter, 

His egregious vanity and self-esteem did not end here. 
It led him to attack the British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, founded in 1831, in a pamphlet 
entitled, “‘ The Defeat of the Eighth Scientific Meeting of 
the British Association of Asses, which we properly call the 
Rich Folk’s Hopping or the False Philosophers in an Up- 
roar,’ and, more personally, Sir Isaac Newton and other | 
great men of science. He sent these absurd tracts to the 
most prominent men in the Kingdom, and was so sure of 
their being appreciated that he neglected to pay postage ! 
John Martin told Serjeant Thomas in 1832 that his brother 
Richard had just sent him two small pamphlets on per- 
petual motion, costing three shillings for postage, adding : 
“ And this is the sort of thing he often does. But William 
does worse than this. William sends to the wealthy and 
great, who possibly know me or my name, and he always 
takes care to let them know that he is brother to John 
Martin ! ” 

One of William’s obsessions was that wonderful in- 
ventions by him had been stolen by unprincipled men ; 
and there can be little doubt that he did invent things. 
All the Martins, apparently, possessed a certain inventive 
capacity, a more or less creative imagination, and one at 
least of William’s inventions received a silver medal from 
the Society of Arts in 1814—that of a spring weighing- 
machine, which may be the one in use to-day. But he 
claimed also a safety-lamp, a fan ventilator, a life-preserver 
for sailors, a cure for dry rot in timber, a suspension bridge, 
and an improved velocipede, or ‘ dandy-horse,’ as it was 





His Life and Times 27 


then called ; all of which, he alleged, had been appropriated 
by thieving rogues ! 

We hear that he had “a noble presence,’ and, if we may 
judge from the portrait he engraved of himself, he had 
certainly a very strong and arresting face. Like his father, 
he was a fine swordsman—all the brothers seem to have 
been good fencers and athletes—and was for some years in 
the Northumberland Militia. It is stated by John that 
William enlisted in order to get the ‘‘ bounty,” by which he 
was able to pay off a distress entered on his father’s goods. 
Apparently at this time he was normal, a bright, vigorous 
youth probably, like his brother John. But in later life 
he grew more and more eccentric, the laughing-stock of 
Newcastle, as he strutted the town, wearing a skull-cap of 
tortoise-shell mounted in brass, his breast covered with 
self-made decorations of gigantic size. He died in 1851 
at John’s house in Chelsea. 

The peculiarities which made William Martin’s name a 
byword in his town reached a further and dangerous height 
in his brother Jonathan. The same want of balance and 
religious fanaticism that we find in his pamphlets led 
Jonathan into the violent extremes of a madman, though 
his insanity does not appear to have developed early. He 
was apparently sane enough when he served his time as a 
tanner with his father and was ‘ pressed’ into the Navy. 
He tells us that he was present at the bombardment of 
Copenhagen, the blockade of the Tagus, and Sir John 
Moore’s expedition at Corunna ; and it is said that he was, 
in turn, signalman to a gunboat, ‘boarder,’ fireman, 
and mortar-boat man; also that he was captain of the 





28 John Martin, Painter, 


foretop in a prize ship taken by Lord Nelson from the 
Spaniards. 

From all this we may judge that he must have been 
normal at that date. But after quitting his seafaring life, 
and taking unto himself a wife, Jonathan passed from 
religious enthusiasm to religious mania, and became a 
dangerous fanatic. He went to chapel and church by 
turns and proclaimed his warnings aloud in those places 
of worship. His indiscreet zeal caused him to be expelled 
from the Methodists and to be discharged from his employ- 
ment. In one church he rose and denounced the preacher 
as ‘‘a whited sepulchre,”’ and, a little later, threatened the 
assassination of Dr. Legge, Bishop of Oxford. For this he 
was brought before the magistrates, and, having admitted 
his guilty intention (probably boasted of it!), he was 
committed, as a lunatic, to Gateshead Asylum. 

After three years’ confinement he escaped, but was 
caught at Hexham and sent back. His wife died while he 
was there. He escaped again, and, this time, was allowed 
to go free. 

Ambitious as his brothers to express his emotions in 
some form or other, he issued an amazing autobiographical 
pamphlet whose title sufficiently indicates its contents and 
its value. 

“The Life of Jonathan Martin of Darlington, tanner, 
containing an Account of the Extraordinary Interposition 
of Divine Providence on his behalf during a period of six 
years’ service in the Navy, including his wonderful escapes 
in the action of Copenhagen and in many affairs on the 
coasts of Spain and Portugal, in Egypt, etc. . . . Likewise 





His Life and Times 29 


egy gyre nye enpaenanenn—vay 














an account of his subsequent and Christian experiences, 
with the Persecutions he suffered for Conscience’ sake, 
being locked up in an asylum and ironed, describing his 
miraculous escape through the roof of the house, having 
first ground off his fetters with a sandy stone. His singular 
Dream of the Destruction of London and the Host of Armed 
Men over-running England, etc.” Illustrated by three 
curious pictures, viz. (I) a frontispiece, ‘ The Colossus of 
Rhodes,’ (2) ‘ Jonathan Martin’s Providential Escape froma 
Watery Grave in the Bay of Biscay four different times,’ 
(3) ‘ Jonathan Martin’s Providential Escape from the Asylum 
House.’ 

How is that for a title-page? The woodcuts should 
have some value to-day as curiosities, for they are remark- 
ably quaint. The first two editions of the pamphlet sold 
well, and Jonathan printed a third of five thousand 
copies. 

Ashe married a second time, two years later,a bride twenty 
years his junior, it would appear that he was fairly pros- 
perous; but shortly after his marriage he became dis- 
traught again and resolved to burn down York Minster as a 
protest against the degenerate and frivolous lives of the 
clergy. 

The story of this attempt is sufficiently dramatic to be 
recorded. He gave due warning of his intention. Some 
little time beforehand a letter was found tied to the iron 
gates of the Minster beginning, ‘‘ Hear the word of the 
Lord, oh you Dark and Lost Clargmen, you desevers of the 


9 


People,” and ending, ‘‘ Jona Martin, a friend of the Sun of 


Boneypart must Conclude by warning you again. Oh, 





30 John Martin, Painter, 
Repent! He will soon be able to act the part of his 
Father.” 

Another paper, in the same strain (and spelling) was 
found later, in which he apostrophised the ‘ Clargy in 
York ” as “‘ blind Hipacrits, Saarpents and Vipears of Hell, 
wine Bibears and Beffe Yeaters.’’ 

And yet nobody in York seems to have taken any 
notice! The writer was obviously of unsound mind, and 
one would imagine that the authorities would have been 
on the look-out for Jonathan Martin, though the extra- 
ordinary spelling may have been an attempt to disguise his 
identity. But no suspicion of danger seems to have been 
roused, and on February 1, 1829, having provided himself 
with flint, steel, and tinder-box, Jonathan went to the 
afternoon service at the Minster and hid himself, when dusk 
set in, between a tomb and the wall. When organist, 
choir, and ringers had all departed and the great doors were 
closed for the night, he crept forth and made his way to the 
belfry, preparing his escape by cutting off some of the ropes 
attached to the bells. Undoubtedly there was method in 
his madness! According to his own account, and to the 
account of certain passers-by who stated, after the event, 
that they had heard strange sounds within the cathedral, 
Jonathan then shouted in exultation : ‘‘ Hallelujah! Glory 
be to God!” and set to work with savage glee on his 
fanatical task. 

With an old razor he first cut away some of the velvet 
and gold tasselling, and the fringe from the bishop’s pew and 
reading-desks, which he made up in three heaps by the wood- 
work of the choir stalls, and then, striking his flint and 





His Life and Times 31 


steel, fired them. Being dry and combustible, they flamed 
up quickly, and then the incendiary made his escape by 
means of the bell-ropes through one of the windows, which 
he broke for the purpose. 

What a scene for the stage! Imagination pictures the 
ancient church, growing more and more full of shadows as 
the last rays of the sun fall through its stained windows 
upon carved wood and worn, hallowed stone ; the crouch- 
ing fanatic behind a tomb watching, with horrible glee in 
his mad eyes, for the last form to disappear, listening for 
the last footfall outside. Then the eager rubbing of flint 
on steel, the tinder spark, the flare and crackle of flame, the 
mounting smoke, the escape! Picture, too, the horror of 
the choir-boy who first saw the flare of those grand windows 
in the murky light of a winter morning 

The fire was not discovered until about 7 a.m. next 
day, and by that time it had made such headway that the 
bishop’s throne, stalls, galleries, pulpit, altar-rails, taber- 
nacle work, organ, and the roof of the nave were destroyed, 
from the lantern tower to the east window—a hundred and 
thirty-one feet in all. And before the flames could be 
extinguished several of the shrines and monuments were 
also irreparably injured. The fire burnt on till five o’clock 
the next afternoon, lasting about twenty-four hours 
Jonathan had done his work thoroughly. 

The crime was instantly fixed upon him. Had he not 
given himself away beforehand? A placard was posted 
up with a full description of his appearance, offering a 
hundred pounds reward for his apprehension. He was 
described as : ‘‘ Rather a stout man, about five feet six inches 





32 John Martin, Painter, 


——n 

















ree 





high, with light hair cut close, coming to a point in the centre 
of the forehead and high above the temples, and has 
large, bushy, red whiskers; he is between forty and fifty 
years of age and of singular manners. He usually wears a 
single-breasted blue coat, with a stand-up collar and buttons 
covered with the same.cloth ; a black cloth waistcoat and 
blue cloth trousers; half-boots laced up in front, and a 
glazed, broad-brimmed, low-crowned hat,” etc. 

He was caught near Hexham, and when taken to gaol 
seemed in quite good spirits Decidedly pleased with him- 
self, his behaviour was rational and he gave no trouble 
whatever. Bits of candle, flint, tinder, and fragments of 
stained glass were found upon his person. On March 13 
he was tried for arson before Mr. (afterwards Lord) 
Brougham, and made an extraordinary defence, alleging 
that, after he had written five premonitory letters to the 
clergy, the Lord had told him what was to be done to warn 
‘ those clergymen of England, who were going to plays and 
cards and such like,’ of their approaching doom. He 
declared that the Lord had deputed him to give a sign 
from heaven by burning down the Minster At a certain 
service he had been exasperated by hearing them singing 
prayers and amens which he knew did not come from the 
heart. ‘‘ Then there was the organ—‘ buzz! buzz! ’—and I 
said to myself, ‘ I’llhae thee down to-night ; thou shalt buzz 
on more,’ ”’ he boasted in court, and ended with the assertion 
that he had never felt so happy in his life as when he was 
firing the Minster, in spite of ‘‘a hard night’s work and a 
hungered belly ” 

The verdict of the jury, “ Guilty ot setting fire to the 


NS 
ie 


ante agton 
net 
aes 


POH ARC TING TN PARC ss CIEE. 
(Portrait by Beeby-Thomson published in the ‘‘ European Magazine,’ 





, 


1822.) 


Diode 





» 





A 


His Life and Times 33 


Minster while in an unsound state of mind,” was changed 
by the judge to ‘“‘ Not guilty on account of insanity,” and 
Jonathan was confined for the rest of his life in a lunatic 
asylum, where he lived nearly ten years, dying in 1838, 
at the time his youngest brother, John, was at the height 
of his fame. 

Jonathan left one son by his second wife, and he seems 
to have inherited his father’s disease, for he committed 
suicide in John’s house. Serjeant Thomas has an interest-. 
ing note of the tragic event, as follows : 

“ August 13th, 1838.—Yesterday I and Martin walked 
over the fields across Wormwood Scrubbs. The whole 
morning was consumed in the horrible narration of the 
frightful suicide in his house last Monday. Poor William, 
the only son of Jonathan, who died in Bedlam three months 
ago, went out of his mind on Saturday and talked in- 
coherently on various subjects. Said he was going to 
have typhus fever and that his breath was poisoning the 
whole family and turning them all black. That he should 
not draw another sketch nor require money any more; 
and many similar strange remarks, to which they turned 
a deaf ear, or took little notice of them at the time—except 
Mrs. Martin. She sent for the doctor and gave him medicine. 
As to going into the narration of the horrid suicide and the 
scenes described by Martin to me, I cannot; though I 
can never forget them. The youth often accompanied us 
in our walks; he was very quiet, sensible, diffident, and 
talented ; but very contemplative and silent. Martin had 
kindly adopted him, and he was always with them after his 


poor father was confined.” 
C 





34 John Martin, Painter, 


In another passage Mr. Thomas tells us that John Martin 
was put to great expense over Jonathan’s trial; from 
which it may be presumed that he paid for his defence. 

Of Richard, Fenwick Martin’s second son, we hear less. 
He served twenty-nine years in the Army, becoming Quarter- 
master-sergeant in the Grenadier Regiment of Foot Guards, 
and published a volume of poetry and some pamphlets.* 
He was sane, if eccentric, and John seems to have helped 
him up the social ladder, since we learn that his only 
daughter married the Keeper of Printed Books of the 
British Museum. 

From these facts it may be seen that the mental aberra- 
tions of Fenwick Martin’s sons bore no relation to that form 
of cerebral weakness known as imbecility. There seems to 
have been, rather, a superabundance of mental activity in 
them all, which probably, fostered by an atmosphere of 
Calvinism, led on the one hand to fanaticism and on the 
other to a genius which found its chief inspiration in the 
Bible. There may, or may not, have been on one side of 
the family a tendency to artistic talent or to brain disease, 
but of this we can learn nothing, and can only assume 
that the extraordinary degree of restless energy manifesting 
itself in Fenwick Martin was transmitted to John as creative 
power and to his brothers as a futile, combative fanaticism. 

Genius, that strange compound of imagination, con- 
centration, discrimination, and power of vivid expression, 
springs first of all from an abnormal spiritual and physical 
energy, and such energy may exist without the balance and 





1 He published in 1830 a volume of poems entitled The Last 
Days of the Antediluvian World, etc, 


His Life and Times 35 


direction to make it vital. John Martin’s brain was 
superbly balanced, and held fast to his aim by a single 
vision. His passionate devotion to the art of painting saved 
him from the fate of his self-sufficient and vainglorious 
brothers By that art he escaped from himself into the 
universal and eternal. 





36 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER II 


John Martin’s boyhood at Haydon Bridge and early attempts at 
art. His migration to London in 1806 and life with Boniface 
and Charles Musso. His marriage in 1809, while employed at 
Collins’s glass and china factory near Temple Bar. His first 
picture, a landscape, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 
1811. First subject picture, Sadak, exhibited there in 1812. 
The tragedy of his third picture. 

It would seem that John Martin once contemplated writing 

his own biography, for I find among the papers kindly lent 

to me by his granddaughter, Madame de Cosson, the follow- 
ing notes, some in his own handwriting, some in the writing 
of his daughter, Isabella : 

‘John Martin, born at the Lowland’s End, Haydon 
Bridge, near Hexham, Northumberland, July 19, 1789. 

“Was the 12th child of his parents. 

“His mother being unable to suckle him, he was put 
out to nurse. The name of his foster-mother was Mary 
French. 

“At an early age sent to Haydon Bridge Grammar 
School, but often played truant and made little progress. 
His cyphering books still preserved, well written but 
scrawled with wretched attempts at drawing and with 
verses. 

“When a boy fond of wandering in the woods and 


among the ruins in the neighbourhood of his home. Of 





His Life and Times 37 


timid and nervous temperate [temperament], fearing to be 
in the dark and dreading ghosts and hobgoblins at every 
corner. On one occasion he climbed up to the top of the 





ruined tower of [illegible] Castle, and so dreaded coming 
down that he at last got into the chimney, and was nearly 
killed, having been obliged to be pulled down by main 
force, so tightly had he stuck. 

“ In his visits to —— [or Lumley] Castle he used to feast 
his eyes on pictures placed out of the way in the ruined 
tower as worthless. On one of these he painted the portrait 
of his grandmother’s cat, with some colour procured from a 
house-painter, or any coloured earths he could find. One 
of his brothers had a box of water-colours too precious to be 
used by the little boy whose ambition was to possess one. 
He ultimately obtained his desire as a reward for some 
portrait attempt. 

“ Until this he occupied himself in searching for coloured 
earths in order to dry and prepare them for painting with.”’ 

A further account of himself appeared in the Illustrated 
London News (February, 1849), which has been called his 
‘autobiography.’ He wrote it to contradict certain state- 
ments made in a biographical sketch of him, previously 
published in that paper by an anonymous writer. This 
writer was his son-in-law, Peter Cunningham (whose son 
has been good enough to furnish me with this private 
information), but I am unable to say whether John Martin 
was aware of the fact or not. Probably he was. His first 
contradiction is regarding his birthplace and education. 

“IT was born at a house called Eastland Ends, Hayden 
Bridge, near Hexham, 19th July, 1789,” he says, ‘‘ and 





38 John Martin, Painter, 


received the rudiments of my education at the well-known 
free school of the place ’’—two facts in conflict with Cun- 
ningham’s statement that he had been born in Newcastle 
and educated at a Grammar School. 

In this ‘ autobiography’ he skims over his childhood 
very quickly, and we have but scanty outside information 
about it. Tradition, however, asserts that while he was 
living in a thatched cottage on the north side of Haydon 
Bridge he would often draw upon the doors of houses or 
the school walls, or on coarse canvas stretched on long 
sticks, pictures that, even then, showed remarkable talent. 
Another story is that with the pointed end of a stick he 
would draw wonderful things in the fine sand of the river- 
bank. Perhaps at his school, as at others of his time, trays 
of sand were used as substitutes for slates, and he learnt 
to make pot-hooks and figures with a pointed stick in 
them. At all events, this legend of pictures in the sand 
derives from one who claims to have been John’s school- 
fellow and constant companion. 

It is also said that he rarely left the school-room during 
play hours, preferring to spend all his available time on 
drawing; and one result of this was a picture on the 
schoolroom wall of two boys fighting and one receiving 
chastisement over the master’s knee, so lifelike that all the 
faces and figures could be easily recognised. But we are 
not told whether the master recognised the talent or birched 
him for defacing the wall! 

“Having from my earliest years attempted to draw 
and expressed a determination to be a painter,’ he con- 
tinues, “‘ the question was how to turn my desire to profit- 





His Life and Times 39 


able account, and it was ultimately decided to make me a 
herald painter—in consequence of which, upon the removal 
of my family to Newcastle, I was, when fourteen, ap- 
prenticed to Wilson, the coachbuilder of that town.” 

He does not give any definite reason for the move to 
Newcastle, but it is quite probable that his boyish deter- 
mination to become a painter influenced his parents in this 
step. It would not take much to influence Fenwick Martin 
towards making any change whatever, since he possessed 
the roving, adventurous spirit, and possibly the idea of 
becoming a fencing-master in Newcastle, while John became 
a painter, captured his fancy. But, for all his adventurous- 
ness, we may conceive Fenwick as having a distinctly 
practical side to his character and recognising the necessity 
of teaching his boy some means of earning a steady living 
before permitting him to indulge in ambitious dreams of 
art. Indeed, even had there been an art school available 
at the time, there was, as we have seen, little money to 
spend on instructing the boy in what might prove to be a 
will-o’-the-wisp lure of fame. John must have a definite 
trade or profession on which to depend. He was therefore 
apprenticed to a coachbuilder on a seven years’ term of 
service, and practised his ’prentice hand on the panels of 
coaches, as Thomas Sidney Cooper and other famed artists 
have done. It was certainly beginning on the lowest rung 
of the ladder. 

We do not to-day perhaps quite realise what the term 
‘herald painter’ meant in John Martin’s boyhood, when 
coaching was the great pastime of men of fashion, and stage 
coaches were still running from all the larger towns in a 





40 John Martin, Painter, 


network of travelling routes, chiefly converging toward 
London. And as every one of these coaches, public or 
private, bore a device of some kind on its panels—coats- 
of-arms belonging to towns or to aristocratic families, 
monograms, animals, and other distinguishing marks—there 
was plenty of work for the young man who manifested any 
talent in designing, or could qualify himself for the kind of 
painting required. 

At first John seems to have been satisfied with the 
opening found for him, and worked well during his long 
hours of service. In his scant leisure, we are told, he would 
rove the town, looking at signboards, which he drew from 
memory when he got home. But after a year of such 
drudgery John fell out with Wilson, the coachbuilder, for a 
reason that he thought justified him. Peter Cunningham 
had alleged that he broke his indentures simply because he 
disliked the work, but Martin gives a more definite cause 
of dispute. He says: 

“T worked with him [Wilson] for a year, in no small 
degree disgusted at the drudgery which, as a junior 
apprentice, I had to endure, and at not being allowed to 
practise the higher mysteries of the art; when, just pre- 
viously to the expiration of the year (from which period I 
was to have received an increase of pay), one of the senior 
apprentices warned me that my employer would evade the 
payment of the first quarter on the ground that I ‘ went 
on trial’ and that it was not in the indentures. As he 
foretold, so it turned out. After claiming the increase, I 
was referred to the articles and the original sum tendered. 
This I indignantly rejected, saying: ‘ What! you’re soon 





His Life and Times 4I 


beginning then, and mean to serve me as you did such an 
one! But I won't submit.’ ”’ 

With that he turned on his heel, and we may imagine 
with what dignity the boy of fourteen marched out of the 
office. His father took his part and declared he should 
not go back. By this time Fenwick had evidently begun 
to recognise his boy’s promise of a brilliant future, and 
encouraged him to draw and paint. John tells us that his 
father gave him a shilling to spend on drawing materials, 
and with these he made studies of the sky from his bedroom 
window, attempting especially to produce impressions of 
lightning flashes—studies that were useful to him later in 
his awe-inspiring pictures. This was at the time that he 
dared not venture out of doors lest he should be captured 
and hauled before his irate master. But staying at home 
did not save him from this dreaded fate, and one day when 
he was drawing in his room the parish beadle appeared 
before him armed with a warrant commanding him to 
present himself at the Court of the Guildhall, to answer the 
charge made against him of breaking his indentures. 

He says that he was not frightened of the beadle, a 
good-natured fellow, who “ did not pique himself much on 


33 


his brief authority,’’ and was rather inclined to stop and 
admire John’s pictures than to be hard on him. But he 
was horribly afraid to face the Court, and wanted to run 
away. ‘Bobby the Beadle,’ however, was very friendly, 
and encouraged him to go before the justice, which he did, 
and was glad afterwards that he had done so. 

“T was dreadfully frightened,” he writes in the ‘ auto- 


biography ’; ‘‘ the more so asno one of my family was within 





42 John Martin, Painter, 


call to accompany me, and, entering the Court, my heart 
sank at sight of the Alderman and my master, with lowering 
face, and his witnesses. I was charged on oath with 
violence, having run away, rebellious conduct, and threaten- 
ing to do a private injury. In reply, I simply stated the 
facts as they occurred. The witnesses brought against me 
proved the correctness of my statement in every particular, 
and the consequence was a verdict in my favour. Turning 
then to my master, I said: ‘ You have stated your dis- 
satisfaction with me, and apprehension of my doing you a 
private injury. Under those circumstances, you can have 
no objection to return my indentures.’ Mr. Wilson was 
unprepared for this, but the Alderman immediately said ° 
“Yes, Mr. Wilson, you must give the boy his indentures.’ 
They were accordingly handed over to me, and I was so 
overjoyed that, without waiting any longer, | bowed and 
thanked the Court, and, running off to the coach factory, 
flourished my indentures over my head, crying: ‘ I’ve got 
my indentures and your master has taken a false oath; 
and I don’t know whether he is not in the pillory by this 
time!” 

It is a very distinct picture that he has thus sketched 
in a few sentences. One can see the excited boy flourishing 
his indentures before his admiring and sympathetic com- 
panions, all ground under the conditions from which he had 
broken free. They were iron conditions, and, under a hard 
master, apprenticeship in his day was not far from slavery. 
I have before meindentures made in 1858, fifty years after 
John Martin’s were signed, running in this wise: 

“This Indenture Witnesseth that So-and-so with the 








His Life and Times 43 


consent and approbation of his Father as his natural 
Guardian doth put himself apprentice to So-and-so to learn 
their Art and thereafter the Manner of an Apprentice to 
serve from —— to unto the full End and Term of 
seven years from thence next following to be fully complete 





and ended During which Term the said apprentice his 
masters faithfully shall serve their secrets keep their lawful 
commands everywhere gladly do Shall do no damage to 
the said Masters nor see to be done of others but to his 
Power shall tell and forthwith give warning to his Masters 
of the same. . . . Shall not haunt taverns or Playhouses 
nor absent himself from his Masters’ services day or night 
unlawfully. . . . And it is fully understood that the hours 
of Labour from April 6th to October r1th of each year of 
the said Apprentice shall be as follows from 6 o’clock a.m, 
to 7 o'clock p.m. and from October 11th to 6th April 
7 o'clock a.m. to 8 o'clock p.m. less two hours each day for 
meals.”’ 

And so forth. If these were the apprentices’ conditions 
seventy years ago, we may conclude them to have been 
even harder a century back, and may draw an inference as 
to young John’s probable hours of labour in Wilson’s factory. 
It seems strange to us now that parents ever doomed boys 
of fourteen or fifteen to eleven or twelve hours’ work a day 
for terms of three to seven years. 

As soon as he was free, John began to apply himself 
seriously to the art he loved. He tells us that he roamed 
the hills at daybreak, “‘ exulting in the sublime grandeur 
of the surrounding beauties of nature, watching effects of 
light and shade, and trying to imprint these beautiful 





44 John Martin, Painter, 


images indelibly on my memory, which, upon my return 
home, I endeavoured to retrace upon paper.” But the 
result of this application was inevitable. He soon began 
to be depressingly aware of his own ignorance, and a 
passionate longing for instruction invaded him. 

“As the hart panteth after the water brooks,’ he said 
twenty-five years later, ‘‘so my soul thirsted for knowledge, 
and my joy was indescribable when I succeeded in persuading 
my parents to afford me a little education. . . . My father, 
thinking well of my talents and the progress I had made 
without aid, determined to procure me a master. He went 
one morning in search of one, and returned apparently 
much elated, saying: ‘Come with me, John, for I have 
found a gentleman who can teach you everything, a cele- 
brated Frenchman’ (father thought every foreigner a 
Frenchman), ‘so bring your drawings and come with me.’ 
I took my drawings, saw my future master, and, father having 
agreed with him on terms for a quarter’s tuition, I was 
directed to come the next day. I didso, and continued to 
take a lesson in drawing twice a week for the next quarter.” 

Admit there was something admirable about this 
Fenwick Martin, journeyman tanner, soldier, expert swords- 
man, roving adventurer, who yet possessed an inner vision 
of art and could recognise genius in the bud. I like the 
honest Northumbrian countryman so much that I would 
fain linger over him. His brilliant son never failed to pay 
him the tribute of profound affection, gratitude, and esteem. 
The greatest regret of his life was that success came too 
late for him to render his parents pecuniary aid when they 
most needed it. They both died while he was struggling 


His Life and Times 45 


in London, and he expresses his sorrow thus to Ralph 
Thomas : 

“One hope of my life, ever present with me, was to do 
something to please them and to help them in their old age. 
It would have been a great joy tome to have had them see 
me in my present condition; how delighted they would 
have been, and how easily I could have spared them a 
comfortable maintenance ! ”’ 

But this is a digression. The master Fenwick Martin 
found for his son was an Italian artist named Boniface 
Musso, who had attained some fame in Newcastle as an 
art master. He exhibited a drawing at the Society of 
Artists in 1790, and his son Charles (known as Charles 
Muss) was a successful glass and china painter in London, 
showing also some talent in enamels. For many years the 
lives of these two men were bound up with that of John 
Martin, and there was a deep and abiding friendship between 
them. Martin always averred that he owed his position 
in the art world to the Mussos, father and son. He was 
certainly much indebted to them for many years. 

And John was not ungrateful. According to him, 
Boniface Musso was little less than an angel sent from 
heaven to help him in the hour of his greatest need, and 
his admiration for the Italian was unbounded, both as artist 
and man. He regarded him, we are told, as an universal 
genius as well as the noblest of men, the most perfect of 
gentlemen, and the most disinterested of friends. 

When, after his first quarter’s tuition, Fenwick Martin 
found that he could no longer afford to pay for John’s 
lessons, Musso offered to teach the boy for love, and not 





46 John Martin, Painter, 


only that, but treated him as a friend and equal. The boy 
went to him daily for instruction, and also spent most of 
his evenings with him. He tells us that he went surrep- 
titiously to Musso’s house on Sundays, when his mother 
supposed him to be at church, because on that day of the 
week only Musso painted in oils, and John was eager to 
learn oil-painting. This went on for over a year, and during 
that time John painted, he says, many portraits, ‘‘ receiving 
as much as seven shillings each ” for them, which, he adds, 
“till I had exhausted my sitters, considerably helped to 
support me.”’ 

The story of one commission, as told by his son Leopold, 
is amusing. It was for the portrait of a boy, the son of a 
widow of some means. This son was about to join the 
Mercantile Marine service, and the mother was anxious to 
obtain his portrait as a sort of reminder during his absence 
at sea. The head was to be sketched on canvas, and as 
the material, being of charcoal, was so soon likely to be 
injured, it was to be framed and glazed—a great distinction 
for a first commission, when not a painting but only a ‘ black- 
and-white.’ The drawing, the frame and the glass complete 
were not to cost more than twenty-five shillings. This did 
not leave much for the artist. The boy attended sitting 
after sitting ; no one was allowed to be present, and, the lad 
being a good sitter, the work progressed to the full satis- 
faction of my father, who gave it every attention. 

“The drawing was at length completed quite to the 
satisfaction of the artist. His father was truly delighted 
with the result, and so were those companions who had 
been allowed to inspect it. The portrait was duly carried 


ey 


His Life and Times 47 


home to the widow in full expectation on the part of the 
artist of giving perfect satisfaction and of receiving pay- 
ment and being complimented upon his great success. 
Oh, the glory of a first commission! But what was his 
dismay, wrath, indignation, and disgust when the mother, 
on glancing at the portrait, exclaimed, ‘ I will have none of 
it—it is not my boy! That boy squints! That boy gleys! 
My son has no squint.’ ” 

John tells us that Musso thought the likeness very good. 
“ "Tis very like, it squint jus’ like de fellow,” he said; but 
Leopold remarks that the boy’s mother had never noticed 
the squint till she saw it in the portrait, and then her in- 
dignation knew no bounds. She not only refused to pay 
for the picture, but threatened John with personal violence, 
and he had to escape hurriedly from her presence. ‘‘ Thus 
ended,” says Leopold, “‘ the first real commission of John 
Martin, and with it all inclination to be a portrait painter.” 

At the end of John’s year with Boniface Musso, that artist 
was persuaded by his son to leave Newcastle and take up 
his abode in London, a move which John must have regarded 
with the greatest grief and consternation. One can, there- 
fore, imagine his rapture when Musso suggested that he 
should join him there and find employment in the great 
city. 

He tells us that at first his parents were very averse from 
the idea, that a good deal of coaxing, both on his part and 
on the part of Musso, was required before they would agree. 
His mother was hardest to move. She had, he says, many 
misgivings about letting him go. London seemed a very 
long way off in those days, when the ‘Flying Machine,’ at 





48 John Martin, Painter, 


its giddiest pace, did not exceed ten miles an hour, and 
the gay city was regarded as a sink of iniquity by most God- 
fearing country folk. She had also some distrust of the 
Italian’s religious views. But we can imagine that the 
boy gave his parents no peace till they consented, and in 
September of the same year he went to town. 

According to Peter Cunningham, he went with only 
five shillings in his pocket, but he refutes this statement 
in the ‘ autobiography,’ and says elsewhere that his father 
gave him fifty shillings for his expenses, besides a complete, 
or, as he calls it, ‘almost inexhaustible’ outfit. He took 
his passage in a Newcastle trader (Cunningham calls it 
a Newcastle collier), and there was robbed of all his 
loose cash, so that he found himself in London almost 
destitute. 

He had some difficulty in finding his friends’ house in 
Cock Court. Confused and frightened, no doubt, by his 
first sight of the swarming city, he lost his way ‘ among 
the thousand windings of the vast metropolis,’ and did not 
reach his destination till about eleven o'clock at night. 
The warmth of his welcome, however, made up to him for 
all the trials of the journey, and he rested happily content 
with his kind friends. 

It must have been somewhat disconcerting next day 
to learn, as he tells us, that the employment Charles Muss 
had expected to have, and to obtain for him also, was not 
forthcoming, the department for which he had engaged to 
work at the china factory not being ready for him. A 
letter had been dispatched to John suggesting that his 
journey should be postponed, but it had not arrived at 





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“MaVd GANOWHOLA 








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nowt 


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His Life and Times 49 


Newcastle in time to stop him. For some months, there- 
fore, he had an anxious time seeking work, generally 
accompanied by Charles Muss, who was also out of employ- 
ment. Despair began to set its fangs in the poor boy, 
whose resources were exhausted, who loathed the idea of 
writing home for more money, and loathed still more spong- 
ing on his good friends, who were not affluent but afforded 
him bed and board with unfailing generosity. 

“How often, sighing, have I said to myself,’ he told 
Ralph Thomas, ‘ ‘this is indeed to me an ever-enduring 
lesson. Here is a man to whom I am debtor, who owes me 
nothing, and is yet of benevolence the spring, flowing from 
a pure heart, all generosity, sharing his pittance with me. 
Why should I rob him? What am I to him? Still he 
daily aids me and appears to delight in his untiring, in- 
explicable goodness. What throes of love do I feel towards 
him! Oh, generous friend! May my conduct through life 
be as yours: I ask no better gift... .’ Thus have I often 
on my pillow, in tears, thought and felt ; poignantly sorrow- 
ing that I could not better my circumstances to aid him.” 

_ The above rings sincerely, and serves to show the bitter 
experience that the poor ambitious and independent- 
spirited boy must have gone through at this period. 

He tells a story of their extreme penury not without 
humour : 

‘““¥ remember returning home one evening, fatigued with 
walking, depressed by repeated denials and faint with long 
abstinence. Each of us sat near the place where, occasion- 
ally, we had enjoyed the blaze of a fire. The only ray to 


gild the present gloom was the cheering aspect of my friend’s 
D 





50 John Martin, Painter, 


countenance. ‘Here!’ he said, ‘we must not despond 
while we have one of these left,’ presenting a shilling to 
my view—I knew it was his last—adding: ‘TI’ll go to our 
mutual friend, the pump, while you go for the staff of life, 
and let it be a large one.’ ”’ 

He tells us that he took the shilling and ran to the 
nearest baker’s shop, seized the biggest loaf he could find, 
and presented the coin to the churlish-looking baker, who 
looked at it suspiciously and rang it on the counter. 

It was a bad one! 

How he lay awake for nights planning what to do in 
his despair is graphically described in this memoir, and that 
he set himself to draw feverishly, from memory, scenes of 
Northumberland rock and fell, which he hawked about 
London till he finally managed to dispose of some to the 
picture-dealer, Ackermann, who had a shop in the Strand. 

At first Ackermann refused to look at his sketches, 
saying,‘‘ We have such a large stock of dese tings at present ; 
we are quite full and over-stocked—quite.”’ But as Martin 
turned to go out of the shop he changed his mind, and 
said, ‘‘ You can show dem to me if you like’; whereupon 
the young artist exhibited his pictures (three drawings in 
Indian ink), and the wily dealer gave him twelve shillings 
for the lot. He had asked a guinea. 

He says that, as he was hurrying off with the money, 
Ackermann called him back, asking if he had any more 
drawings to dispose of; upon which he (Martin) drew 
himself up haughtily and replied: “‘ Want reduced me to 
request you to purchase these drawings, hunger compelled 
me to dispose of them for this inadequate sum; but you 





His Life and Times 51 


have not used me well, sir, and I will never deal with you 
again.’’ And this we can well believe of the fiery youth. 
But it was not by any means his last transaction with 
Ackermann, who must have made a tidy fortune out of his 
engravings when Martin was at the height of his fame, 
paying him in some cases as much as {500 in royalties. 
But he never knew that the great man was the poor boy 
he had so beaten down, for John was too proud to tell him. 

His friend Muss rebuked him for his hot words to 
Ackermann, and he was afterwards sorry for them, as 
he came to realise that the dealer was one of the most 
decent of his kind and treated him much more fairly than 
others to whom he showed his pictures. But he was new 
to the unpleasant task of hawking round his work, and had 
not learnt to dissemble his feelings. 

He struggled on in London thus for a time doggedly, 
and sometimes wretchedly, but never without faith in 
himself and a secretly-nourished certitude of success in the 
future. ‘‘ Many a day, after fruitless efforts to dispose of 
my designs, have I returned to gaze upon them and feed 
myself with hopes; for, under all circumstances, I enter- 
tained the belief that I should some day be rich and in- 
dependent. I never mistrusted myself or despaired of 
better fortune,” he declares, ‘‘ my hope of success buoying 
me up, even when I was starving.”’ 

At this, the lowest ebb of his fortunes, he must have been 
often hungry, for he lived on ten shillings a week and 
contrived, out of that, to help his brother Richard, who was 
in London and often applied to him for pecuniary aid. But 
after a time his prospects improved. He found employment 


U, OF ILL. LIB. 





52 John Martin, Painter, 


with Charles Muss, who had apparently gone into part- 
nership with another man in a glass and china business, 
for he tells us that he agreed to serve them for five years 
at £2 a week, half of which he volunteered to pay back for 
the necessary instruction in the art of designing and painting 
on china. 

Charles Muss lived in Cock Court, in the house Wilkes 
had lived in, and John slept in the bedroom that the famous 
iconoclast had occupied. But after staying there for a time 
he had ‘“‘some little differences with the family,” and 
cleared out to a lodging in Adam Street, Cumberland Place. 
Perhaps his habit of sitting up till two or three o’clock in 
the morning, studying perspective and architecture, did 
not please Mrs. Charles; and he tells us that this is what 
he did, after working all day at china-painting. But there 
seems to have been no rift in his friendship with Muss, for 
whom he continued to work as long as his business held 
together. 

Not very long afterwards, however, in 1809, the ‘ estab- 
lishment ° of Charles Muss and Co. was broken up, and those 
employed had the option of seeking independent employ- 
ment or following the fortunes of the different members of 
the firm. John followed his friend, and when he obtained 
a wage of {2 a week, continued to pay £1 to Muss, as stipu- 
lated in his agreement, until he married. 

Charles Muss opened an exhibition in Bond Street, 
which was a dead failure, and he became bankrupt. He 
was glad to accept employment, therefore, in what must 
have been a rival’s factory, namely, in the service of one 
Collins, who had a flourishing glass and china business near 


(erences ramneseaenemeemmcta eee teins tee ra at PA I NRE BA PCI. ESE ETNA TOCA SNE OEE 


His Life and Times 53 


Temple Bar. Martin was also engaged by the same 
firm. Muss received £6 a week, and Martin, as already 
stated, £2. 

Of Muss it is only necessary to say a few words before 
dismissing him from this chronicle. He attained some 
distinction in enamelling, was made enamel painter to 
William IV., and had many commissions from him. From 
1800 to 1832 he exhibited enamels in the Royal Academy, 
some being unusually large; and he executed a copy of 
Rubens’ Descent from the Cross for St. Bride’s Church, 
Fleet Street. He died in 1834, and John Martin undertook 
to direct the completion of his unfinished works in glass 
and enamel, doing all in his power for the widow and 
children, who were left badly off. Thus he was able to 
discharge his debt, as far as possible, to his friend and 
benefactor. 

In 1809 John Martin married Miss Susan (or Susannah) 
Garrett, of Crundal, Hampshire, a lady nine years his 
senior. He was then under twenty and must have looked 
a mere boy, for he was not great of stature. They were 
wedded at Marylebone Church, and his son comments on 
the match as follows : 

“My father formed an attachment to, and afterwards 
married, a friend and constant visitor at the Musso’s, a 
lady who, for nearly forty years, proved a dear and devoted 
wife . . . she who made my father’s home and life supremely 
happy, a true and loving helpmate, not only the pride and 
deeply beloved of a numerous family, but the esteemed 
of all.” 

Mrs. Martin must indeed have been a cultivated and 


54 John Martin, Painter, 


capable woman, if all that her son asserts be true, and we 
have no reason to doubt it. For he continues: 

“As a wife none could have been more inspiriting, 
encouraging, or devoted. Engrossed as my father was in 
his art pursuits, he had but little time for the perusal of 
the ordinary literature and news of the day. The Bible, 
Milton, and Byron were nearly the only works he read by 
himself, but to listen to an accomplished reader was with 
him a passion, and it was one my mother never failed to 
satisfy. Scarcely any publication of the day, of any note, 
escaped her; hardly an author of the period was unknown 
to them. Hours each day were passed in this trying 
occupation—for reading aloud is really such. Her voice 
was charming, her style perfection ; poetry and prose came 
to her alike. With such advantages, few were better 
informed about the literature of the day.” 

The family of eight came quickly, four boys and four 
girls, Isabella, the eldest, being born in 1812, and Jessie, 
the youngest, in 1825. Two sons, John and William, died 
in infancy, the rest grew up, and all married except Isabella. 
With the babies coming every year or two, living from 
hand to mouth, as they must have done (for John tells us 
he had a hard struggle to make ends meet for some years), 
Mrs. Martin can have been no ordinary woman if she yet 
found time to cultivate her mind and to read aloud to her 
husband for several hours a day. She must have been 
clever enough to manage her boy husband too, and a genius 
is not generally easy to manage! John was irritable and 
irascible we know. Perhaps she had not a very enviable 
time, but no doubt she ruled the house, and ruled it well. 





His Life and Times 55 


When Martin married, Muss refused to take any more 
money from him (as indeed he had no right to do, the 
agreement being terminated by the closing down of his 
business), although John wished to continue until the end 
of the five years stipulated, and was perfectly sure that he 
could keep a wife and himself on a certain income of {1 a 
week, with what he could earn outside. But he soon 
discovered this optimistic error, and the struggle began 
again in earnest. He tells us that the friends and patrons 
he made while at Collins’s were invaluable to him, giving 
him orders which kept the wolf from the door, and all might 
have gone well had he been able to remain in that business 
on a rising scale of wages. But, unhappily for his needs 
of the moment (although, perhaps, to his higher interests 
in the end), he lost that employment twelve months later. 
And this is how he states the reason of his losing it; a 
reason that is of some interest to us to-day : 

“My fellow-workmen,” he says, “ finding my produc- 
tions the greatest favourites and fetching the highest prices, 
sought to injure me. They found out that I had not been 
regularly bound apprentice to this business, that I had 
not served the required term, and they determined to put 
an end to my employment. They therefore struck against 
me, placing me suddenly in the most painful position. 
Perhaps this was in part brought about by the fact of my 
never having mixed with the men. Their tastes, habits, 
and views were discordant. They drank and smoked and 
wasted their lives in public-houses ; in short, they were 
content to stagnate, whilst I wished to progress.” } 


1 Quoted by Mr. Ralph Thomas. 





56 John Martin, Painter, 


It was ever thus with him. As a boy he tells us that 
other boys shunned him, and he could not get on in their 
society. They thought him a prig, no doubt, and he 
thought them infinitely dull and boring, with their petty 
interests and narrow outlook. 

“‘T saw that I was crushed and there was no help for 
me,” he continues; ‘I was too proud to contest against 
such antagonists. I resigned, and was thrown upon my 
own resources once more, with a wife and child to 
support.”’ 

But on the day of his leave-taking he exploded his 
views upon them in a manner that must have been startling 
and impressive. After telling them that they had done 
their best to ruin him, he continued: 

“Your conduct is tyrannous and unjust. I pity you, 
as you act in ignorance. I feel that it is not simply to 
injure me, but you think it is for your own general good, 
and I see you are ready to sacrifice yourselves and your 
masters to vindicate your opinion. I think you are wrong 
and I can prove it. . . . Your blind vengeance will recoil 
on yourselves. I can prove this to the thoughtful and 
attentive. My designs have caused emulation and excite- 
ment among you that, of itself, has improved your work 
and gained you better pay. My works have been sought 
for and paid for highly. Persons have bought them who 
would not have desired to possess such articles unless 
executed with taste. So, by my knowledge, your business 
has been benefited, buyers have increased, prices have been 
raised ; more work and better pay for you has been the 
result of the demand. I have also proved that a long 





His Life and Times 57 


apprenticeship is unnecessary and this may result in a 
saving of your time.” 

He ended by declaring that he would seek some more 
liberal business, where industry and ability would not be 
met by tyranny; that restrictions argued weakness and 
mediocrity, and that competition and improvement were 
the heart and hope of all trade, the advancement of all 
commerce and progress. 

It must have been a very remarkable harangue from a 
boy of twenty-one, if Mr. Thomas reports it accurately. 
In later years he formulated his creed that ‘‘ the best 
antidote to small wages is self-improvement. Improve 
your power of action and you improve your condition,” 
and this he ever carried into practice, never relaxing from 
his efforts after the highest standard it was possible to reach. 

Upon his marriage he took rooms in Northumberland 

Street, Marylebone, but soon moved again to the High 
Street, and there started, he tells us, to paint pictures in 
the evenings, at first water-colour drawings and then “ in 
odd hours to paint in oils.” 
His memory with regard to those first pictures seems 
to have become somewhat confused and misty when he 
wrote the autobiography, for he tells us that his first big 
picture ever exhibited was A Clyte, and that he sent it to 
the Academy in 1810. But in the full list of his pictures 
sent to the Academy 4 we find it was not hung there till 
1814, where it appeared under the title of Clyte, with the 
words : 


1 Royal Academy Exhibition, Graves, vol. v. 





58 John Martin, Painter, 


“ All day, all night, in trackless wild, alone 
She pin’d and taught the listening rocks her moan.” 
The following year, 1815, it was also shown at the British 
Institution. 

He does not claim that it was accepted in 1810, but 
says: ‘‘It was rejected for want of room, as I afterwards 
learnt. . . . I therefore sent it again in 1811, when it was 
hung, in a good situation, in the Great Room.” This was, 
of course, at Somerset House, where the Royal Academy 
held its exhibitions at that period. 

There may have been two Clyties, but we do not hear 
of one being exhibited before 1814; and his son states 
plainly that Sadak 1m search of the Waters of Oblivion was 
the first picture painted by John Martin for exhibition. 
But a “ landscape composition ”’ is chronicled as being hung 
in the Academy in 1811, and, as John states that he sent 
two landscapes with the Clytie, he may have painted one of 
the lady that was rejected and never appeared; or was, 
perhaps, hung in an anteroom and escaped notice. It does 
not matter to us now. The important point to be sure of is 
that Sadak was really his first exhibited subject picture. 
With regard to it he writes: 

“Having now lost my employment at Collins’s, it 
became indeed necessary to work hard, and, as I was then 
ambitious for fame, I determined on painting a large picture, 
Sadak, which was executed in a month.” 

If his memory had not again misled him, that was indeed 
a wonderful feat. For we are told that it was “‘ an original 
and striking composition,’ although the small central 
figure of Sadak was so lost in the immensity of a rocky land- 





His Life and Times 59 


scape that it was barely visible. Martin himself, writing 
of the picture, humorously observes: ‘“‘ You may guess 
my feelings when I overheard the men who were placing it 
in the frame disputing as to which was the top of the 


»? 
! 


picture But it was sufficiently impressive, whatever its 
flaws, to command a good deal of notice from the press (to 
his great delight, as he tells us), and was bought by a Mr. 
Manning, a director of the Bank of England, and patron of 
art, for fifty guineas—a sum which must have seemed a 
fortune to the struggling young artist. 

Of the Clytve, exhibited two years later, Leopold relates 
a tragic story, and dates from it his father’s animosity 
towards the Royal Academy. After asserting that the 
picture was “‘ a grand ideal ; a bright and lovely landscape, 
an effort to portray the beauty of Claude, when at his best 
and happiest, combined with the charm of Turner,’ he tells 
us that it was fairly hung at Somerset House, though rather 
low down, and his father was satisfied with its position. 
He retouched and varnished it and looked forward to the 
effect it might create at the private view and usual dinner 
to Ministers and patrons of art. But unfortunately : 

“ Above my father’s picture of Clytie were hanging some 
smaller works, either by Royal Academicians or Associates 
of the Royal Academy. Thus it happened... that one 
of the privileged painters, when varnishing his picture, 
contrived—we must hope unobserved—to upset a quantity 
of dark varnish, which ran in a thick stream directly down 
the centre of the bright landscape of Clytve, thereby cutting 
it completely in two, and in every way destroying the 
beauty of the clear landscape and the anticipated effect my 





60 John Martin, Painter, 


father hoped to excite. The accident was presumed to be 
unperceived, and the dusting of the rooms took place 
previous to the private view and dinner. Blacker and 
blacker became the streak of varnish; more and more 
disfigured became the picture ; all its brilliant beauty paled ! 
The ‘ private view ’ arrived, then the dinner, and the picture 
of Clytie passed unnoticed—all the startling effect having 
been quite destroyed. Months of work and thought had 
been wasted. A whole season was quite lost, with the 
incidental losses in the shape of income and reputation.” 

“The first Monday in May—the public opening day— 
came, My father hastened to Somerset House full of every 
hope and expectation. Fancy his chagrin, his indignation, 
his disappointment, at finding all his hopes crushed ! Appeal 
was now of no use; it was too late. All chance at the 
Exhibition was gone.” 

He goes on to say that the President, Benjamin West, 
sent his son to apologise for the accident, which he had not 
noticed till the opening day, but it is clear from this account 
that neither John Martin nor Leopold were satisfied, or 
believed the neglect had been unintentional. It is certainly 
strange that no one should have let the artist know what 
had happened to his picture between varnishing day and 
the opening of the Exhibition. 

Leopold concludes: “‘ One may date my father’s enmity 
to the Royal Academy from this unfortunate accident, 
which he never overlooked or forgave.” 





His Life and Times 61 





CHAPTER III 


John Martin’s next two pictures, Adam’s First Sight of Eve and 
The Expulsion, exhibited at the Royal Academy and British 
Institution in 1813. His home in Marylebone High Street. 
Some glimpses of Old Marylebone; the deer forest and 
hunting-lodge, village, manor house and farm.  Dairy- 
keepers and farmers of St. Pancras and Kentish Town. Duels 
on Primrose Hill. Marylebone Spa. The founders of the 
Botanical Gardens. The Golden Dustmen of Victorian London. 
The painting of Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still. 
Prince Leopold of Belgium and the Princess Charlotte. 
Martin’s three first children born. . 


In 1813 Martin sent out two large pictures for exhibition, 
one to the Royal Academy and one to the British Institu- 
tion. To the former he sent Adam’s First Sight of Eve, 
with the quotation from Milton : 


“* Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought, 
Wrought on her so that, seeing me, she turned.” 
and to the latter, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from 


Paradise, with four lines from the same source: 
“The world was all before them, where to choose 
Their place to rest, and, Providence their guide, 
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way.”’ 
Both were accepted, and the former was sold to a Mr. 


Spong for seventy guineas. 
Everyone may not know that the British Institution 


62 John Martin, Painter, 


was founded in 1805 for the encouragement of British 
artists, and a building raised in Pall Mall on a plan by Sir 
Thomas Bernard. The lease of the premises expired in 
1867. The fund in the hands of the trustees to be devoted 
to the promotion of the fine arts had amounted to £24,610 
in 1884. From that fund John Martin received several 
premiums, the first being awarded to him, as we shall see, 
in 1816. 

After informing us with some pride that his Adam and 
Eve picture had been hung in the Great Room of the 
Academy, Martin goes on to say: “‘ My next picture, Clytie, 
though a picture which has stood the test of criticism during 
many years, was in 1814 placed in the anteroom of the 
R.A.” ; which certainly leads me to suppose that he painted 
two Clyties. The first may have been the one we find 
under the title of “A Landscape Composition,” at the 
Academy in 1811. But no picture of his seems to have 
made an appreciable stir till, in 1816, his painting of Joshua 
Commanding the Sun to Stand Still, from the text, ““ The Lord 
discomfited them before Israel ’’ (Joshua x. 10-12), was hung, 
much to his disgust, in the anteroom. The following year 
he sent it to the British Institution, where it attracted 
great attention and received the chief premium of the year 
—one hundred guineas. | 

It was not sold, and we find it again exhibited at the 
British Institution in 1849, when a critic writes: 

“The most important contributors to the present 
exhibition are Mr. John Martin, Mr. Lee, Mr. Sidney Cooper, 
etc... . Mr. Martin contributes a large picture of Joshua 
Commanding the Sun to Stand Still, a commission, we 


“29 “a 


‘ITILS GNVIS OL NAS AHL DNIGNVWWOO vaHsol 











His Life and Times 63 


believe, from a well-known patron of English art. The 
incidents and combination are the same as in the large 
engraving, but the painting is certainly superior to any- 
thing which we remember to have seen from Mr. Martin's 
easel for several years. The distances are admirably 
managed and the whole conception brought out in a wonder- 
ful manner. It is, perhaps, a little too blue.’ } 

John Martin tells us that the picture was not sold till 
some years afterwards, when it went as a companion to 
Belshazzar’s Feast, both pictures being bought by a Mr. 
Charles Scarisbrick, of Scarisbrick Hall, and afterwards 
sold at his sale at Christie’s, to Capt. Leyland (afterwards 
Col. Naylor-Leyland), of Hyde Park House, Albert Gate. 
We find them in the list of loan exhibitions 2 in 1862, when 
they were shown at the International Exhibition, and 
Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still appeared, with 
three other paintings by Martin, at a Wrexham exhibition 
in 1876. For many years they have been hanging at 
Leighton Hall, Welshpool, the country house of Mr. J. M. 
Naylor, by whose order they have again been sold at 
Christie’s this year (January, 1923). These once famous 
pictures have been since then—and may be still—on view 
at Mr. Drake’s gallery in St. Mary Axe. 

Whether he painted a second Joshua for the Exhibition 
in 1849, or whether its owner allowed it to be exhibited 
then, as representing Martin, we do not know. It is treated 
in the above notice as a new picture, although the engraving 
of a presumably earlier one is mentioned. On March to of 


+ J]lustvated London News, Feb. 17, 1849, 2 Graves, vol. ii. 





64 John Martin, Painter, 


the same year a rough print of the picture is given in the 
Illustrated London News, with a full description of the 
subject, and the biographical article by Peter Cunningham 
which roused the painter’s ire. If the picture had been 
painted twenty-two years before and attracted great atten- 
tion, it seems strange that we find it cropping up again as 
an important work of art only a few years before Martin’s 
death, and receiving the descriptive treatment of a new 
and original picture. Of it Martin writes: 

“Down to this period I had supported myself and 
family by pursuing almost every branch of my profession 
—teaching, painting small oil pictures, glass enamel paint- 
ings’ (does he mean glass and enamel ?), “‘ water-colour 
drawings; in fact, the usual tale of a struggling artist’s 
life. I had been so successful with my sepia drawings, that 
the Bishop of Salisbury, the tutor to the Princess Charlotte, 
advised me not to risk my reputation by attempting the 
large picture of Joshua. As is generally the case in such 
matters, these well-meant recommendations had no effect ; 
but, at all events, the confidence I had in my own powers 
was justified, for the success of my Joshua opened a new 


era to me.” 
To the first mention of this picture (Joshua) we find a 
parenthetical note given: ‘‘ (Historical Landscape Painter 


to their Royal and Serene Highnesses the Princess Charlotte 
and Prince Leopold),’’ and concerning this his son writes : 

“My father and his devoted wife resided in rooms at a 
quiet house in High Street, Marylebone, a portion being at 


1 I possess one of these, a scene from Ivanhoe, dated 1829, with 
its text below in Isabella Martin’s handwriting. It is exquisitely 
drawn and certainly lends support to the Bishop’s advice. 





His Life and Times 65 


the same time occupied, in an equally unpretending manner, 
by Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, then nearly unknown, 
but subsequently the husband of the Princess Charlotte of 
Wales. Both princess and prince subsequently proved 
truly valuable patrons. The princess became his pupil in 
drawing, as well as a liberal patron, never overlooking the 
once fellow-lodger of her royal husband. The prince, when 
King of the Belgians, not only conferred the insignia of 
Leopold upon my father, but distinguished him in many 
other ways.” } 

There seems to be a little doubt as to the date on which 
John Martin’s first child, William Fenwick, was born, but 
it was probably in 1810. The date of this boy’s death is 
given as 1813, and the birth of Isabella, the eldest daughter, 
as 1812. 

Then came another son, John, who died in 1814. 

Leopold states that Isabella was named after her 
mother’s mother, Isabella Thompson, of Low House, 
Haltwhistle ; adding, with a little crow of obvious pride: 
“the Thompsons claim uninterrupted descent, or nearly 
so, from Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, Christian 
Martyr, burnt A.D. 1555.’ It is an interesting note as, if 
true, it bears on the religious bias shown in the Martin 
family. ? 

We may conclude that Martin had one child when his 
‘Landscape Composition’ was hung in 1811, and two 
children at the time he painted Sadak. He was then 
living at 77, High Street, Marylebone, in the house partly 
1 He was godfather to Leopold Charles Martin, John’s second 


son, 
E 





66 John Martin, Painter, 


occupied by Prince Leopold of Belgium; and I will beg 
your leave to step off the running line of narrative for a 
while in order to consider the Marylebone of that date, and 
the surroundings in which the young painter worked. 

A very interesting part of our capital city, Marylebone, 
has been strangely neglected by most writers upon London. 
Lambert, in his History of London (1806) says: ‘ Maryle- 
bone was a small village almost a mile distant from the 
nearest part of the Metropolis; indeed it was formerly so 
distinct and separate from London as not to be included in 
most histories and typographical works devoted to the 
Metropolis,’ a fact which may account for this neglect. 
The whole district formed part of the great Forest of Middle- 
sex, at one time an oak forest which, according to Fitz- 
stephen’s Survey of the Metropolis (1170-82) was “ full of 
lairs and coverts of beasts and game, stags, bucks, boars 
and wild bulls,” but seems to have been deforested early 
in the thirteenth century, though we read that the old 
Marylebone fields once contained a large number of these 
oaks, which were used for shipbuilding. 

From the remains of this great forest Marylebone Park 
came into being. We find the survival of its name in St. 
John’s Wood, the first church there (in Tybourne village) © 
being dedicated to St. John. And it was Marylebone Park 
up to tae time when it underwent an artificial change and 
was re-christened the Regent’s Park in honour of ‘ the First 
Gentleman of Europe,’ who concerned himself in its 
reconstruction. 

In the time of Elizabeth Marylebone Park was at the 
height of its glory as a hunting ground, and she appointed a 





His Life and Times 67 


“Lieutenant of the Chase and a Keeper for Maribone”’ at 
salaries of {12 13s. 4d. and {10 respectively. The Manor 
House, a very beautiful Tudor building, according to old 
prints of it, was built in the reign of Henry VIII., and 
used by him as a hunting-box. It is to be regretted that 
it was demolished in 1791. 

The name of Marylebone, called by early writers Mari- 
bone and Marybourne (or Mary Bonne), by Pepys Marrow- 
bone, and in Dy. Syntax, Mary-boune, was taken, as most 
Londoners know, from a church dedicated to the Virgin, 
built by a brook or ‘ bourne.’ About the year 1400 it took 
the place of a church dedicated to St. John, and was situated 
on the eastern side of a rivulet that started in Hampstead 
and ended near Vauxhall Bridge. This rivulet, called the 
Tye, or the Ty-bourne, Eye-burn, Tybrook, Eyebrook, 
etc., had, as its source, the Shepherd’s Well, near the meeting 
of Fitzjohn’s Avenue with Lyndhurst Road, now converted 
into a public fountain. The present lake in Regent’s Park, 
a piece of low-lying, marshy ground, was fed mainly by the 
‘Tybourne and its branches up to a century ago. 

But the chief interest of this stream, and the forgotten 
village named after it, lies in its notoriety as a famous— 
or infamous—place of execution. The ‘Tyburn Tree’ 
stood there once, though it was shifted many times and 
finally established a few yards west of the present site of 
the Marble Arch, according to one authority. Another 
states its site to have been on the spot where Edgware Road 

and Bayswater Road meet. 
} Standing in that busy thoroughfare now, it is not easy 
to imagine what Marylebone was like at the time of which 





68 John Martin, Painter, 


Leopold Martin writes. The gallows may still have reared 
its ugly head at Tyburn when John Martin took his bride 
to the rooms in Northumberland Street, and when green 
fields stretched about Marylebone Park Farm, of which 
several old prints are still extant, showing that as late as 
1807 the district was still quite rural. There is a picture 
in the National Gallery which even shows the particular 
breed of cattle for which the Park Farm, Marylebone, was 
remarkable! In 1794 the park was divided up into forty- 
three fields, 543 acres in extent, and was held by three 
tenants. 

Thus when Leopold Martin tells us that his father’s house 
“nearly opened upon green fields, St. John’s Wood and 
Hampstead,’’ we know he wrote truthfully, though it seems 
impossible now that either Marylebone Road or the house 
in Allsop’s Terrace, into which John Martin moved, could 
ever have been in the country. Regent’s Park has done 
its best to keep up the rural character, it is true, and further 
along, up in Hampstead and Highgate, one feels the country 
air and enjoys the country green. But Marylebone suggests 
nothing save bricks and mortar to one’s mental eye. 

The old Manor House, after being turned into a school, 
was pulled down in 1791, at a time when many changes were 
made in Marylebone. Hedges were uprooted, old lanes 
done away with, farm buildings demolished. Certain names 
survive to tell us what was once there—Green Lane, Chalk 
Farm, Primrose Hill, etc. We have reason to believe that 
Primrose Hill was actually the haunt of primroses at the 
time when, a lonely and unlighted district, it was often 
chosen as a duelling-ground. As late as 182: we have the 





His Life and Times 69 


record of a duel fought there by the editor of the London 
Magazine and a contributor to Blackwood’s, when the 
former was severely wounded and died at Chalk Farm a 
fortnight afterwards. And if John Martin and his wife did 
not hear the shots, they must have shared in the thrilling 
sensation of the moment. 

“Have you heard the news?” one can imagine Mrs. 
John Martin saying to her husband at lunch-time when he 
appeared, dishevelled and perhaps attired in a dressing- 
gown. ‘“ Another duel on Primrose Hill last night. Oh, 
what fools men are to think they can establish their honour 
by killing one another! ”’ 

I feel quite sure that Susan Martin would say that, and 
John, still lost in Belshazzar’s Feast, would agree with 
anything at the moment. 

One does not need a superabundant imagination to 
reconstruct the life of that young couple living in High 
Street, Marylebone, at a time when it was the edge of the 
green country and Euston Station was still undreamed of. 
Euston was, by the way, the first railway station built in 
London, its lines beginning to run between that city and 
Birmingham in 1838. No doubt John and his wife would 
stroll in the fields on fine evenings, when the twilight put 
an end to his painting, and perhaps visit the Chalk Farm 
Tavern, where all manner of entertainments went on; 
though Susan would never venture there alone, as the place 
had not a good name. 

There was another place of amusement at the back of 
the Manor House, in the reign of Queen Anne, known as 
Marylebone Gardens and frequented by rank and fashion. 





70 John Martin, Painter, 


Waters of medicinal virtue were discovered there, and a 
spa was the attraction. Pepys mentions Marylebone 
Gardens and a house attached known as the “ Rose of 
Normandy,” which was closed in 1776. The house after- 
wards occupied by Charles Dickens in Devonshire Terrace 
is said to have been opposite this Marylebone spa and the 
Old Manor House. 

“Since landscape painting has been an important 
branch of the English school,” observes Leopold Martin, 
‘““ Hampstead has seldom escaped the notice of our chief 
oil or water-colour painters. It was at all times a spot 
much frequented by my father. The walk from town, 
through fields and wooded lanes, was most pleasant. The 
Eyre Arms Tavern, now the centre of St. John’s Wood 
district, was then on the outskirts. It was well known as 
a place for athletic sports, and for the annual meetings of 
the Westmorland and Cumberland Wrestlers. 

“T have a perfect recollection of one walk with my 
father, who had for a companion Mr. Raffaelle West, eldest 
son of Benjamin West, at one time president of the Royal 
Academy. ...AS we were passing the above-named 
tavern we were startled by friendly shouts from one of the 
upper windows. This proved to be occupied by a party of 
painters of some note. We noticed Mr. Linton, Mr. Heaphy, 
and Mr. Glover, all to some extent known to my father. 
Mr. Linton was president of the Society of British Artists. 
Mr. Heaphy was highly distinguished as a water-colour 
painter, and had served from 1812 on the staff as artist to 
the Duke of Wellington during the Peninsular War.” 

He goes on to relate how they continued their walk, 





His Life and Times aI 


passing Old Belsize House and grounds, “‘a mansion truly 
interesting and historic,” close by the “charming and 
secluded residence of Mr. Thomas Longman,” founder of 
the publishing firm; and how they called upon Mr. John 
Constable, the Royal Academician. 

“Mr. Constable was then living temporarily at a part 
of Hampstead termed ‘ Holmwood,’ not far from the rustic 
cottage for a time occupied by Charles Dickens, while 
engaged in writing Barnaby Rudge. He received us in his 
usual kind-hearted, homely manner. In person, as was his 
wont, he was untidy, for he lived, like an equally great 
painter, Salvator Rosa, constantly in the wild, splashy, 
wet, dripping woods, during storm, rain, and wind, all of 
which have been so perfectly depicted by the great ‘ splashy ’ 
painter, justifying the remark made by the immortal artist, 
J. M. W. Turner, when directing his servant to bring him 
an umbrella, as he was going to call on Mr. Constable. The 
house at Holmwood had lovely surroundings. Mr. Con- 
stable’s favourite sketching ground, a place that went by 
the name of Child’s Hill, was near at hand. It was a 
woody spot, distinguished as the semaphore, or telegraph 
station, being the first from London to Portsmouth and 
working directly with the Admiralty at Whitehall. The 
electric telegraph had not come into operation. 

“Having an appointment with one of my father’s 
earlier friends then residing at Hampstead, we could not 
extend our ramble with Mr. Constable. Mr. Thomas 
Alcock, the friend named, was the distinguished surgeon 
to St. Thomas’s Hospital of whom I have spoken elsewhere. 
The object of the appointment was to inspect an interesting 








72 John Martin, Painter, 





garden cottage, then to be let, which Mr. Alcock was rather 
disposed to take. It was old, with good gardens and 
grounds, and nearly adjoined those of Belsize Park. The 
chief interest in the eyes of Mr. Alcock lay in the fact that 
it had, at a former date, been occupied by Charles Sedley, 
the wit of Charles the Second’s Court, and subsequently by 
Sir Richard Steele. It retained the name of Steele Cottage. 
It no longer exists, but the district roads bear the names 
of Sedley and Steele.”’ 

We get a number of little sidelights upon various 
celebrities of the day, with these pictures of old Hampstead 
and its houses, from this garrulous Leopold. 

“ There were lanes,’ he writes, ‘‘ within a walk of our 
house, with the scent of sweet old-fashioned flowers, wild 
roses, honeysuckle and the like, leading to the wonderfully 
rich and beautiful districts of Twyford, Castlebar, and 
Hanger Hill, the chief sketching place of my father. Hanger 
Hill House, a charming spot, was then the residence of 
Lady Byron, the widow of the poet. Lady Byron formerly 
resided at the foot of the hill in a charming old house named 
Fordbrook, once the residence of Henry Fielding, the 
author of Tom Jones. Ignatius Bonomi, brother to Joseph 
Bonomi, who married my younger sister, Jessie, took as 
wife Cecilia Fielding, daughter of Henry, by which our 
family became immediately connected with that of the 
great novelist,” and he goes on to tell us more of Lady 
Byron and her daughter. 

“Lady Byron, mother of Ada, ‘sole daughter of my 
house and heart ’ as Byron wrote, then a timid, delicate, but 
beautiful, child-like girl, was often seen by us walking her 





His Life and Times 73 


pony in the rustic lanes of Hanger Hill. She (Ada) was by 
far too timid to trust without a leader at the bridle to 
guide. Who then could have contemplated that this 
delicate, timid daughter of the great Lord Byron would 
develop into the distinguished mathematician, Ada, Countess 
of Lovelace? Well do I remember seeing the funeral of 
her father in 1824. The body lay in state for two days 
at No. 25, Great George Street, Westminster. The whole 
place was blocked up from early morning with spectators 
and I followed the procession as far as the New Road, near 
Regent’s Park.”’ 

Further on we have the following sketch of a character : 

“My father’s friend, Mr. Welling, was at one time the 
chief dairyman and cowkeeper for the West of London, 
farming all the open country of Marylebone Fields, Camden 
Town, St. Pancras, even on to Hampstead, together with 
the open spaces of St. John’s Wood, all combined and known 
as ‘ Welling’s Farms.’ One of Welling’s farms is now 
known as Regent’s Park. It really extended to Hampstead 
and included the fields of Kentish Town... . At the 
period of which I write Mr. Welling occupied Twyford 
Abbey, the owner of which, rather than subject himself 
to the poor, and other like rates, had no fixed residence. All 
servants and others employed on this estate were paid by 
the year, receiving annual notice to quit, so as to preclude 
any claim on the parish for relief in time of need and 
destitution.” 

What would the good gentleman have said to our in- 
surance and employers’ liability measures ? 

In Mr. Webster’s delightful work on Regent’s Park and 





74 John Martin, Painter, 


Primrose Hill, we find it chronicled that the ancestors of 
Cecil Rhodes were “‘ the largest farmers in St. Pancras and 
rented a portion of the Park, nearthe York and Albany, 
at Gloucester Gate.” 

The largest farmers in St. Pancras ! 

Two other celebrities of Marylebone, the nurserymen 
Jenkin Brothers, a sketch of whose very quaint cottage 
has been preserved in the Sowerby family (James de Carle 
Sowerby being the earliest secretary of the Royal Botanical 
Gardens), are mentioned by Leopold Martin as follows : 

‘Blandford and Hareweed Squares were the site of 
extensive nursery gardens occupied by the brothers Jenkins, 
keys being paid for by subscribers. The Jenkinses sub- 
sequently removed to the inner circle of Regent’s Park, and 
really founded the gardens of the Royal Botanical Society.” 

But his most interesting account of old Marylebone is 
in his story of the original Golden Dustman, upon whom 
Dickens must have based his conception of the cruel miser, 
Harmon. 

“From the early companionship of Charles Muss,” he 
says, ‘“‘ my father’s friendship with so many celebrities can 
be traced ’’—here follows a string of names—‘ Great was 
his enthusiasm for the charming daughters of Bartolozzi, 
Madame Vestris and Mrs. Anderson. But few were more 
appreciated than the four distinguished daughters of a 
certain Major Clark, constant visitors at Mr. Muss’s. The 
Major, when young, had married the only child of a well- 
known character in the parish of Marylebone, a Mr. Porter, 
sweep, scavanger, and dustman, who, on the marriage of 
his daughter, endowed her with a mountain of dust, then 





His Life and Times 75 


standing in the New Road, said to be valued at £10,000. 
This mountain stood on the site of what was originally one 
of the great pestholes at the time of the Plague. In Mr. 
Porter’s time it was an open space of parish ground, at 
present (1889) occupied by the Metropolitan Railway, and 
known as the Portland Road Station. Mr. Porter’s dower 
is said to have been the origin of the term ‘ coming down 
with the dust.’ ”’ 

Compare Dickens : 

“The man,’’ Mortimer goes on, ‘‘ was the only son of a 
tremendous old rascal who made his money by dust.’’ 

““ Red velveteens and a bell?’ the gloomy Eugene 
inquired. 

“And a ladder and basket, if you like. By which 
means, or others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and 
lived in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of 
Dust. On his own small estate, the growling old vagabond 
threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and 
its geological formation was Dust, coal dust, vegetable dust, 
bone dust, crockery dust, rough dust, and sifted dust— 
all manner of Dust... . 

‘““* He chose a husband for his daughter, entirely to his 
own satisfaction, and not the least to hers, and proceeded 
to settle upon her, as her marriage portion, I don’t know 
how much Dust, but something immense.’ ”’ 

We can hardly realise the state of things now, but it is 
a wonder there was not another Great Plague in London in 
Victoria’s day. For we read that “ early in the century the 
great dust-heaps of London (where now stand Argyle, Liver- 
pool, and Manchester Streets) were some of the disgraces 





76 John Martin, Painter, 


of London; and when the present Caledonian Road was 
fields, near Battle Bridge were heaped hillocks of horse 
bones. The Battle Bridge dustmen and cinder-sifters were 
the pariahs of the Metropolis. The mountains of cinders 
and filth were the débris of years, and were the haunts of 
innumerable pigs. ‘The Russians,’ says the late Mr. 
Pinks, in his excellent History of Clerkenwell, ‘ bought all 
these ash-heaps to help rebuild Moscow after the French 
invasion.’ The cinder ground was eventually sold, in 1826, 
to the Pandemonium Company for £15,000, who walled in 


the whole and built the Royal Clarence Theatre at the Ss 


corner of Liverpool Street.”’ + 

Here, then, lived John Martin and his wife, between dust é 
mountains and green fields ; and we can see him painting 
hard all day at his Joshua, giving lessons at intervals to the 
gracious Princess Charlotte—England’s hope at that period 
—and other pupils; while Susan probably sat in a corner 
of the studio (what kind of studio could it have been ?) 
rocking the cradle with her foot and either stitching baby 
clothes or reading aloud to him the works of Defoe, Richard- 
son, or Goldsmith. In March, 1816, the second girl and 
third child, Zenobia, was born. Susan must have had her 
hands full, and the hundred guineas awarded to her husband 
for his picture must have been a godsend for which she was 
devouily thankful. 


he Old and New London. 





His Life and Times a 


CHAPTER IV 


John Martin’s exhibited pictures between 1814 and 1818. His 
several changes of address and distinguished neighbours. 
Love of chess and games generally. His irascible temper. 
Friendship with Leigh Hunt’s Brother. An interview with 
Turner, Hazlitt’s criticism of Martin’s pictures. 

In 1814 we find the mention of a smaller picture in the 

list of exhibitors at the British Institution. It is called 

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, and bears the explanatory 

motto he was wont to attach to his pictures: 

“’ But oft would bathe her in the crystal tide, 
Oft with a comb her dewy locks divide, 
Now in the limpid stream she viewed her face, 
And dressed her image in the floating glass.’’ (OvipD.) 
At this time, if not at all times in his career, Martin 
seems to have loved painting the nude, and heaven alone 
knows how he managed to doit. In no chronicle that has 
come into my hands is there any reference to his studying 
from the human model. His first teachers, the Mussos, 
father and son, were landscape painters by profession, and 
although he tells us that he sat up at night studying archi- 
tecture and perspective, he does not say anywhere that 
he ever drew from the cast or from the human figure. 

Critics fell foul of his figures, complaining that they were 

defective and lacked dignity. But the fact that such 

pictures as Adam’s Furst Sight of Eve, Clytie, and Salamacts 





78 John Martin, Painter, 





and Hermaphroditus were accepted by the judges of the 
Royal Academy and British Institution gives them a 
certain sanction and suggests that their defects were not 
radical. How he learnt to paint the human form at all 
must remain a mystery. 

The mark made by his Joshua on the public mind, the 
notice it received from the Press, and the hundred guineas 
received as a prize from the British Institution, must have 
been a great stimulus to Martin, for we find him very 
fruitful in 1816 and the two following years. The Bard was 
hung in the Academy in 1817, with its motto: 


“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King : 
Confusion on thy banners wait.’-—GRAY. 


and at the British Institution in 1816-17 he is represented 
by no less than ten pictures, namely: View of a Lane near 
Hampstead, Carisbrook Castle, View of Kensington Gardens, 
Another View in Kensington Gardens, View of the Entrance 
of Carisbrook Castle, Evening (‘‘ The Curfew tolls the knell 
of parting day ’’), Landscape Composition, Another View of 
Kensington Gardens, The Hermit (“ Turn Gentle Hermit of 
the Vale ’’) and Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still. 

He also did for Ackermann a series of etchings on copper 
of English forest trees illustrating a book issued in 1816 
under the title of The Character of Trees. This is the first 
we hear of John Martin as an etcher, and again we are 
impelled to wonder where he learnt the fine art of etching. 
Possibly the success of this first attempt led him later to 
undertake the engraving of his own pictures. 

Martin seems to have lived in two different houses in 


His Life and Times 79 


High Street, Marylebone. Under his name in the British 
Institution list it stands as No. 77, but later (in 1816) below 
one of his pictures, View of the Entrance to Carisbrook Castle, 
it is stated as No. 75. And in the Royal Academy list we 
find his Landscape Composition sent from 77, High Street, 
while Adam’s First Sight of Eve is sent from 75, High Street. 
We may therefore conclude that between 181r and 1813 he 
shifted camp, and there are reasons for assuming that it 
was at No. 75 he found himself under the same roof with 
Prince Leopold of Belgium, his first, and perhaps his most 
loyal, patron. 

In 1816 we find him styled for the first time in the 
catalogues ‘“‘ Historical and Landscape Painter to their 
Royal and Serene Highnesses the Princess Charlotte and 
the Prince Leopold,’”’ and from that date, apparently, John 
Martin’s star began to ascend. In 1817 he took a house of 
his own, persuaded to do so by his old friend, Boniface 
Musso. He tells us that he had no money for such a venture, 
but was induced to borrow from the Mr. Manning who had 
bought his Sadak. We read the story of that purchase in 
Serjeant Thomas’s memoir. 

Sadak had been returned to him unsold after its ex- 
hibition at the Royal Academy in spite of the flattering 
notices it had received in the papers, and he had been 
much depressed. But when he went home one evening, 
tired and dejected, after trying to sell some sketches, he 
found that a gentleman had called upon him to ask the 
price of Sadak, and had left his card. Weary as he was 
with tramping the London streets, John set off to find his 
patron, but, making some mistake in the address, failed to 





80 John Martin, Painter, 


do so and returned home once more, worn out and des- 
pairing. 

Next morning he tried again, and succeeded in finding 
Mr. Manning, who received him very politely and requested 
to know the price of the picture, Sadak. Said John in 
trembling accents: ‘‘ ‘My circumstances are very reduced 
and therefore I will sell it for considerably less than the 
price I had fixed. I put one hundred guineas upon it in 
the Exhibition, but you shall have it, sir, for fifty guineas.’ 
Mr. Manning readily acknowledged the price was far less 
than its merits deserved, and in paying it observed that 
he considered himself Mr. Martin’s debtor, and hoped he 
would command his services at any time he needed them.”’ 

It transpired later that his son, who had recently died, 
had been so enchanted with the picture that he went to the 
Academy frequently to gaze on it, and the bereaved father 
wished to possess it for the young man’s sake. 

When, therefore, John had seen a house in Allsop Terrace 
that he fancied, his friend Musso suggested that he should 
take Mr. Manning at his word and ask for a loan sufficient 
to pay the first year’s rent and help to furnish it. 

The sum decided upon was £200, and as Mr. Manning 
proved as good as his word, the house was taken, not 
without misgivings on Martin’s part, for he had a horror 
of debt, and was very loath to borrow. But he seems to 
have been persuaded into the venture by Boniface and 
Charles Muss, who thought it necessary he should make a 
little show in the world. The wisdom of this view was 
afterwards proved, for although John suffered agonies of 
mind for some months, seeing ruin and debtor’s prison ever 





His Life and Times Wena <3 


before his eyes, he began to prosper soon after moving to 
his first whole house. 

“Allsop Terrace,’’ Leopold writes, “‘ was then of con- 
’ siderable consequence. Rows of mansions were hardly 
known and Westbournia was unbuilt. Fitzroy Square was 
a fashionable locality. Dorset Square was the Lord’s 
Cricket Ground—Lisson Grove was really a grove, St. 
John’s Terrace being its termination. My father’s new 
residence ’’ (they always resided in residences in Leopold’s 
day ; to livein a house would have sounded rather vulgar)— 
“opened on, or nearly opened on, the green fields of St. 
John’s Wood and Hampstead. It was here, in the back 
garden, he built his first painting room, with an outlet into 
a back lane; and subsequently, upon its foundation when 
rebuilt, a substantial private painting establishment and 
convenient painting room, attached to the house by a long 
gallery and supported by iron pillars.” 

John tells us that the house pleased him very much, as 
it had north and south aspects and he could get into the 
fields, park, or Kensington Gardens in a very few minutes, 
adding: ‘‘ These places were to me like my own garden. 
I frequented them so much and painted them so often.” 

He had a number of distinguished neighbours. Leigh 
Hunt, William Beckford, Macready, Turner, Charles Wesley, 
Mrs. Siddons, Lady Byron, Mrs. Fitzherbert, and Charles 
Dickens are some of those mentioned. And before he left 
the district he seems to have known most of them. 

Owing to the almost entire absence of dates in his son’s 
memoir, it is not possible to say when John Martin’s friend- 
ship with the Hunts began, but it was probably before he 

F 





82 John Martin, Painter, 


became famous. At all events, we learn that the weekly 
gatherings which afterwards became famous as ‘ evenings 
at home,’ were first started by John Martin and John Hunt 
(brother to Leigh and editor of the Examiner) for the purpose 
of indulging their passion for chess. John Hunt lived in 
“a pretty cottage in what was then known as Black Lion’s 
Lane, but now designated Queen’s Road, Bayswater,” and 
his wife, as well as Mrs. Martin, seems to have been a chess- 
player, for the two couples met alternately at each other’s 
houses once a week to engage in this solemn pastime. After 
a time others begged for admittance, and by degrees the 
original object of the meetings was lost, music and conversa- 
tion usurping its place. 

Apropos of his father’s love of chess, Leopold tells an 
amusing story of John Martin in later life that throws 
some light on the painter’s temperament. He prefaces it 
by saying that chess was the only amusement which really 
had any serious effect on the usual even temper of his 
father, and continues: 

“An arrangement had been come to with a very old 
friend, a truly amiable man, magistrate for the county of 
Middlesex, and a very good chess-player, to make two or 
three weeks’ tour in North Wales, chiefly for the purpose 
of sketching, but also for general amusement. The chess- 
board, of course, formed an important portion of the 
contents of the portmanteau. On arriving at a romantic 
village in a remote district in North Wales, the friends 
enjoyed the usual chops and tea. The chess-board was 
then produced, and the game was won by my father, whose 
friend, in not an unusual way, remarked that the game had 





His Life and Times 83 





been lost through an unfortunate oversight at a certain 
point of the game. This was a matter of dispute with my 
father. The game was thereupon played over again from 
the point indicated, and with the like result, but the same 
opinion was still maintained by my father’s friend. It was, 
therefore, again replayed, and temper was lost! The 
friends left the table and retired to their respective rooms 
without their usual glass and good-night! Before break- 
fast next morning my father’s portmanteau was packed and 
he was off to complete his tour alone, leaving his old com- 
panion to return home or go elsewhere as he pleased.”’ 

Serjeant Thomas relates more than one instance of John 
Martin’s violent temper when roused : 

“We were throwing the javelin at a mark on a tree, 
in a pleasant avenue about six miles up the Paddington 
Canal,’’ he says, ‘“‘ Leopold, his partner, Alfred, Charlie, and 
myself. We were all of opinion that he had missed the 
mark, but Martin was positive he had hit it. He grew 
wild at contradiction, spoke passionately, and finally became 
infuriated... . . But,’’ continues Thomas, after some heated 
dialogue, “‘ as we bent our way home he stopped suddenly, 
came to a sense of his folly, and said, ‘ How foolish, how 
very weak, to throw myself into such a vulgar passion 
about such a thing—to make a fool of myself over such a 
trifle!’’’ Again, in another place, we read: “I dined 
with Martin, and Peter Cunningham dined with us. We 
argued about poetry, and Martin, as he usually does if 
crossed, got into a towering passion.”’ 

Nevertheless, Ralph Thomas, no less than Leopold, 
does not accuse the painter of being an ill-tempered man. 





84 John Martin, Painter, 


These fits of rage were not common, we may believe, and 
only to be expected from a man of his excitable temperament 
and immense vital energy. 

He was, according to his son, a great lover of games 
and exercise of all kinds. Fencing was a daily amusement, 
and he took lessons from a professional teacher in the art 
that seems to have fascinated all the Martins. The javelin- 
throwing to which Mr. Thomas alludes, appears to have 
been a game of his own invention, in which he was very 
keen. It was, says Leopold: 

“As novel as it was athletic. For practice he had 
attached to his ordinary walking canes heavy iron heads, 
or cones, weighing about six or eight ounces, and forming, 
as it were, spear heads. The procedure of the game was to 
select a well-developed tree growing in some secluded spot, 
to mark out a target with chalk on the bark, and then, at 
a given distance, say twenty yards, to hurl the javelin, as 
it was termed, at the bull’s eye, counting the marks in 
the ring as usual. As one took, at each throw, a step back 
until a considerable distance might be obtained, the exercise 
was a Capital one, even for an athlete, and one which brought 
out favourite actions (often depicted) in my father’s paint- 
ings, especially in the pictures of The Fall of Babylon and 
The Fall of Nineveh. Many fine trees may yet be seen in 
quiet spots in the outskirts of the west of London with the 
‘target ’ very evidently marked on the bark.” 

He was also a great walker. From Queen Street, 
Cavendish Square, through Hyde Park and Brompton to 
Chelsea was but ‘a pleasant ramble’ to him, and one such 
walk, as recorded by Leopold, may be quoted in this con- 





His Life and Times 85 





nection, although it must have been taken at a later date 
than that to which we have so far pursued him; at a date, 
in fact, when his second boy was old enough to walk so 
far with him. The occasion was a visit to Turner, and 
this is how our observant and voluble memorist describes 
the great man and his surroundings: 

“J. M. W. Turner then resided at Queen Anne Street, 
Cavendish Square. The house was a gloomy, detached, 
five-windowed, large-doored abode. An extensive studio 
occupied the back of the residence. We found the great 
painter at work upon his well-known picture, The Fighting 
Téméraive. Mr. Turner hardly struck one as a man who 
was producing works so full of poetry and art. His dress 
was certainly not that of a refined gentleman and painter. 
A loose body coat, very open side pockets, with a dirty 
paint rag stuck in one of them; loose trousers, unbraced, 
and hanging under the heels of his slippers; a large rose- 
wood palette on his thumb with a very big bunch of brushes 
of various sizes in his hand, and a rather old hat on his 
head—such was J. M. W. Turner at work. The studio was 
dark and gloomy, in every way like that of an untidy man, 
and not at all what one would have expected from so great 
a painter. 

“Mr. Turner intimated that, on my father’s arrival, 
the was on the point of walking over to his small place a 
Chelsea. If inclined for a walk, would he accompany him ? 
This my father willingly agreed to do. Crossing Hyde 
Park, Brompton, and so on by the footpaths through market 
gardens to Chelsea—a very pleasant ramble—Mr. Turner 
introduced us to a small, six-roomed house on the banks of 





86 John Martin, Painter, 


the Thames, at a squalid place past Lindsay Row, near 
Cremorne House. The house had but three windows in 
front, but possessed a magnificent prospect both up and 
down the river. With this exception, the abode was 
miserable in every respect. The only attendant seemed to 
be an old woman, who got us some porter as an accompani- 
ment to some bread and cheese. The rooms were very 
poorly furnished, all and everything looking as though it 
was the abode of a very poor man. Mr. Turner pointed 
out, with seeming pride, the splendid view from his single 
window, saying, “ Here you see my study—sky and water. 
Are they not glorious? Here I have my lesson night and 
day!’ The view was certainly very beautiful, but hardly 
of that description one would have expected the great 
Turner to glory in. Effect was all he required. Mind gave 
the poetry of the picture. 

“At Chelsea, Mr. Turner saw no one. He was quite 
unknown, passing under another name—that of his old 
housekeeper. His life was that of a recluse, one of abject 
poverty. When in Queen Anne Street, the only visits, 
except chance calls like my father’s, were those of patrons 
or connected with professionalrequirements. No members 
of the fair sex were ever seen to enter the house. In person, 
not only in his study, but at all times, Turner was untidy ; 
a sloven and unwashed—one that might well have been 
taken for a Hebrew ‘ old clo’’ dealer, but certainly not for 
the greatest poetical landscape painter of his age.” 

It is interesting to observe, in the little private criticism 
of Turner’s work which follows this account, a curious 
resemblance to Hazlitt’s verdict on John Martin’s pictures. 


His Life and Times 87 


Says Leopold: “‘ Turner was once without a rival; all 
that his fancy whispered his skill as an artist executed. 
At a later day, however, he forsook the beautiful and applied 
himself to the fantastic. He no longer sympathised with 
nature, but coquetted with her.” 

And Hazlitt observes of John Martin: “ He strives to 
outdo nature, to give more than she does, or than his subject 
requires or admits. ... The only error of these pictures 
is, however, that art here puts on her seven-league boots 
and thinks it possible to steal a march upon Nature.” 

But we must return to the time before Martin had put 
on his seven-leagued boots and begun to steal his march 
upon Nature; the time when he built his first studio and 
started on his new big pictures, The Bard and The Fall of 
Babylon. 





88 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER V 


Martin’s Change of Address—The Fall of Babylon exhibited at the 
British Institution and sold for four hundred guineas. Break- 
fast with Sir Walter Scott and his visit to Martin’s studio to 
view the picture Macbeth. Martin’s resentment against the 
Royal Academy, and criticism of its methods. Friendship with 
Leslie. Sir George Beaumont, art patron and connoisseur. 
Story about Wilkie. Visit of Mrs. Siddons and Charles Young 
to the Studio, 

SPURRED by the debt hanging over him and the shadow of 
the wolf at his door, John Martin started on a new painting, 
The Fall of Babylon, we must believe, as soon as he was 
settled in his new house at Allsop Terrace. Whether he 
finished his previous picture, The Bard, there or not, it is 
impossible to say, but it was exhibited at the Academy the 
same year (1817), sent from the new address, and the 
following year at the British Institution. It was a large 
picture, eight feet by seven, but it seems to have made 
no very distinct mark, and although shown at two 
such important exhibitions, to have found no immediate 
purchaser. 

The Fall of Babylon (in 1819), however, was more 
fortunate. A smaller picture than The Bard, it must, 
nevertheless, have been more impressive, for it captured 
the fancy of a rich art connoisseur, Mr. H. T. Hope, who 


paid him four hundred guineas for it, the price Martin had 


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His Life and Times 89 


put on his picture. His delight at this success was un- 
bounded. 

‘“‘Mr. Hope saw, admired, and bought my picture,” he 
says. ‘“ He at once sent me a cheque for the four hundred 
guineas in a letter that fills my breast with rapture now, and 
whenever I think of it. Four hundred guineas! A sum 
which is enough to set me free, to unmanacle me from the 
chains of debt, to place me above want; aye, to secure me 
a year’s affluence. ... No prisoner liberated, no manu- 
mitted slave, ever tasted a more exquisite relish of happiness 


~~ than I did at the moment I read that sweetest of all epistles. 


. . . I lost not an hour in redeeming my bond from Mr. 
Manning and paying the debt with the interest due; thus 
cancelling the monetary part of the obligation, but the 
grateful remembrance of it never. If I had not succeeded 
now, | must have sunk. Increased rent, increased expenses 
everyway. ... I felt as much joy, and glut of delight, at 
painting a picture on which I put four hundred guineas, 
_ and getting it, as Wellington must have felt in conquering 
Bonaparte. I had thirsted to succeed as a Painter. Was 
not this success? If not with the world, it was for me 
and my family, my friends, my creditors, and my encourage- 
ment.’’ 

The depth of this gladness and gratitude seems never 
to have been wholly discharged. At a dinner-party some 
years afterwards, in returning thanks for a toast, he spoke 
with simple boyish fervour of his debt to Mr. Manning and 
his joy at repaying the loan borrowed. Some of his friends 
appear to have taken him to task afterwards for his plain 
speaking and warned him that it is prudent to avoid speaking 





go John Martin, Painter, 


in public of one’s early struggles; for he is reported 
to have said: “I have always tried to uphold, by argument 
and example, the speaking of your genuine thoughts and 
the acting upon your conscientious beliefs’; and we find 
that, all through life, John Martin remained unaffected, 
unashamed of his humble origin, simple and impulsive as 
a boy. 

His pride was all vested in himself, in his own talent and 
work ; he was the prouder that he owed nothing to the 
position in which he was born; and that pride was deeply 
hurt by the way his pictures were treated by the Royal 
Academy authorities. Reasonably so, we may conclude, 
since the picture considered of sufficient merit to win the 
hundred-guinea prize of the British Institution was hung 
in the anteroom at Somerset House. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that he sent The Fall of 
Babylon to the British Institution (1819), although we find 
a number of his less important works in the Academy list 
In 1818 he had four pictures there: View of the Fountain, 
Temple and Cave in the Grounds of Sir C. Cockerell, Bart., 
M.P.; View of the Farm belonging to Setzincot House, the 
Seat of Sir C. Cockerell ; South Flank of Seizincot House ; 
and View of the Fountain of Setzincot House. These may 
have been water-colours, and were probably commissions, 
In some quarters John Martin’s landscapes were preferred 
to his subject paintings, but two only have been preserved 
—scenes in Richmond Park. They are in the Victoria and 
Albert Museum, South Kensington. 

In 1820 he was again represented in the Academy by 
trivial work, View of a Design for a National Monument to 





a 


His Life and Times QI 


Commemorate the Battle of Waterloo, Adapted to the North 
End of Portland Place, while his subject painting of Macbeth 
(meeting the Weird Sisters on the blasted heath) was hung 
at the British Institution. 

He calls the latter “one of my most successful land- 
scapes. Ralph Thomas informs us that it was one of the 
pictures he partly repainted some years after its exhibition. 
“Martin,” he says, ‘‘ was always retouching and improving 
his unsold pictures, and sometimes even those he had sold.’’ 
(He was touching up Edwin and Angelina, for instance, the 
property of Mr. Thomas Alcock, a distinguished surgeon of 
St. Thomas’s Hospital, at the same time as Macbeth.) 
The figures of Macbeth and Macduff did not satisfy him— 
he had probably given more attention to the landscape at 
the time he painted the picture (a large one five feet eight 
inches by eight feet)—and it was the same with another 
early picture of his, Love Among the Roses, in which, he 
said, the figures were originally too large.1 Rather oddly, 
he dated them as finished in the year he revised them ! 

His son tells us that Sir Walter Scott was interested in 
the painting of Macbeth when he visited John Martin’s 
studio in 1831, just before his last journey abroad. The 
artist and hisson were invited to breakfast by Mr. Lockhart, 
Sir Walter’s son-in-law, at his house in Sussex Place, and 
afterwards : 

“Sir Walter accompanied Mr. Lockhart and my father 
to his studio in New Road, Sir Walter supporting himself 
with a stick on one side, and with my shoulder on the other. 


1 This picture does not seem to have been exhibited. 


Q2 John Martin, Painter, 


On the way the novelist was much interested at the sight 
of the abode of Mrs. Siddons in Upper Baker Street. The 
great actress was very ill and died shortly after in the same 
year. Sir Walter Scott made a rather long stay in the studio, 
the last of any artist visited by him previous to leaving 
England, till he returned in 1832 to die. One feature of 
the visit was the special interest he was pleased to take in 
one of my father’s early works, one of the few still in his 
possession—the picture of Macbeth—expressing great regret 
at his inability to purchase it, as he would so like to place 
it on the walls at Abbotsford. My father’s like inability to 
offer it as a gift was also a great regret.”’ 

We are sure that it must have been. From every 
source we learn of John Martin’s generous instincts. 

“T heard my father state,’’ Leopold proceeds, “ that 
during the painting of this picture two of his friends were 
greatly interested in the correct pattern of the tartans of 
Macbeth and Macduff, and, with much kindness, procured 
patterns of both tartans, which they expressed anxiety to 
see strictly copied. These friends, he informed Sir Walter, 
were the brothers John Sobieski and Allan Hay-Allan Stuart, 
claiming descent from the royal line of Stuart through 
Cardinal York, brother of Charles Edward, the Pretender. 
The brothers, John and Allan, were well known in certain 
circles in London, and were much honoured and respected. 
John published a history of the ‘ Tartans of the Clans.’ I 
remember them well: they had much to call to mind the 
true Stuart blood. 

‘The St. James’s Hotel, in Jermyn Street, was the 
last London lodging of Sir Walter Scott after his return from 





His Life and Times 93 


the Continent. The writer of these reminiscences well and 
painfully remembers the deep, heart-felt feeling of sym- 
pathy and sorrow exhibited by those who saw Sir Walter 
carried from his hotel to his carriage. How distressing was 
the sight—the prostrate figure and vacant eye! There 
was many a tear on the occasion of his removal from the 
hotel on the 7th July, 1832.” 

The fact that Martin’s picture of Macbeth and his more 
important Feast of Belshazzar, the following year, appeared 
at the British Institution Exhibition, and not at the Royal 
Academy, suggests that it was in this year his resentment 
against that body was at its height. All his life he seems 
to have been more or less at feud with the Academy, although 
many of his greatest pictures were hung there later, and 
we have constant allusions to this bitterness of spirit in 
the journals of his son and Ralph Thomas. 

Yet the latter tells us that the President, Benjamin 
West, was a good friend to Martin at the outset of his 
career, and that Martin always remembered his encourage- 
ment with gratitude. It would, indeed, have been surpris- 
ing if West had not sympathised with an artist whose 
taste for scriptural subjects was so like hisown. But it is 
possible that, after Martin’s first successes, he may have 
felt himself superseded as a religious painter; for his 
glories certainly paled in the light of Martin’s dazzling and 
original conceptions. 

However that may have been, it is clear that Martin 
nursed a deep resentment against the Royal Academy, and 
we have on record many bitter speeches against it. ‘‘ Ben- 
jamin West,” he said, ‘‘ introduced me to Leslie, the talented 





94 John Martin, Painter, 


young American, and I continued very intimate with him 
till he became an Academician; but the Academy spoiled 
many a good man; as now constituted, it lowers and 
degrades men. Leslie, since he got into the Academy, 
has kept among them, and aloof from the outside artists. 
Different parties, at different times, have waited upon me 
to invite me to try and get into the Academy ; but I said 
from the first that I would not try while they were so 
badly constituted and had such unjust and illiberal laws.” 
Serjeant Thomas believes that he did once put his name © 
down at the Academy, or that someone did so for him, but 
only once; never a second time. 

At this date it is impossible to judge between Martin 
and the Academicians of his day. He was indubitably 
arrogant, self-satisfied, and irascible; the startling origin- 
ality of his work was likely to breed distrust in a body of 
men bent on preserving classic ideals and more conventional 
in its standards, doubtless, than any Academy since. And 
as, perhaps, the chief office of academies is to maintain a 
classical standard, they could hardly be blamed for dis- 
trusting any daring innovation. 

Serjeant Thomas tells us that John Linnell shared 
Martin’s opinion of the Academy, and had cause for an 
even deeper grudge against it, since he sent in his name as 
a candidate every year for twenty-seven years in vain. 
“T have had,’ he told Martin, “all that time only 
moderately good prices ; my pictures were bought occasion- 
ally by the best of the collectors, Mr. Baring and others, 
but I did not get a third of the price that Collins got, because 
I was not R.A. One told me I shvuld give dinners and 





His Life and Times 95 


make the Academicians my friends in that way. Others 
told me I should get a more fashionable tailor and assume 
more style. No one ever said, ‘ You must paint better to 
get into the Academy.’ ”’ 

We have heard all this in our own day. Whether it 
be just or not, I leave others to judge. But that John 
Martin managed to offend some of the Academicians there 
can be no doubt. Nevertheless, he continued to send 
pictures to the Academy at intervals all through his life, 
and the reason he gave for this apparent inconsistency was 
that he considered it the property of the public and therefore 
claimed it as a right to have his pictures hung in its 
exhibitions. 

(It should be remembered that originally no charge was 
intended to be made for admission to these exhibitions. 
It was only in the year 1780, the twelfth ot its existence, 
that the following notice appeared: ‘“‘ As the present 
Exhibition is a part of the Exhibition of an Academy sup- 
ported by Royal Munificence, the Public may naturally 
expect the liberty of being admitted without any expense. 
The Academicians therefore think it necessary to declare 
that this was very much their desire; but they have not 
been able to suggest any other means than that of receiving 
money for admittance to prevent the rooms from being 
filled by improper persons, to the entire exclusion of those 
for whom the Exhibition is apparently intended.’’) 

Returning for a moment to Leslie, it is interesting to 
note that he and Martin were for a long time on terms of 
intimacy. 

‘“‘ Leslie was once a true friend to me,’’ John is reported 





96 John Martin, Painter, 


to have said, ‘‘in time, too, of need. I loved him dearer 
than a brother; we were like brothers in our continual 
friendship. He lent me some money and sent me some at 
a time of great distress, and I shall never forget these actions 
of kindness while I live.” 

His son tells us that, after Charles Muss, Leslie was, 
perhaps, his father’s oldest and most valued friend. He 
gives us some rather interesting details of the American 
artist’s home and studio that I may be forgiven for 
quoting. 

‘“‘My recollection dates as far back,’’ he writes, “‘ as 
when Leslie resided in Portland Place, Maida Hill, one of 
a row of houses with a south aspect, the painting-room 
facing south. This circumstance, unusual with artists, 
accounted, perhaps, for the tone of warmth and colour of 
his early works, many of which became cold and chalk- 
like in tone on his removal toa studio with a northern aspect 
in Abercorn Place. 

“Once, on calling with my father, we found him engaged 
with Sir George Beaumont, his hands encumbered with 
pieces of various coloured silks, with the object of instruct- 
ing Mr. Leslie in the mystery of contrast of colour! Sir 
George illustrated his ideas with the various tints in the 
different silk patterns. Mr. Leslie was only too glad of 
our interruption, being then engaged on his picture of The 
Widow, a black, grey and white painting, requiring very 
few of Sir George’s suggestions. 

“ Being at a loss for a model, I was requested to become 
one for the widow’s son, and I well remember passing many 
tedious hours, acting as model in Mr. Leslie’s painting- 





His Life and Times 97 


room. It was quite perfection in the way of accessories. 
There was more than one lay figure of perfect French 
manufacture, also fine casts from the antique, armour, 
various costumes, etc. 

“Mr. Leslie was a tall, gaunt man, with hard, dark 
features, recalling the followers of the founders of Penn- 
sylvania. His dress was at all times black and never 
without broad-banded black and white socks. He was 
every bit an American; kindly in manners, good-hearted, 
and friendly, but cold to a degree. His house was open 
to any American of note. My father often mentioned 
meeting there Washington Irving, Washington Allston, and 
Gilbert. He also met Stuart Newton, since an R.A., but 
chiefly known for his paintings of Sterne and the Gnsette, 
Macheath in Prison (both in the National Gallery), and 
The Return of Olivia, from the Vicar of Wakefield, now at 
Lansdown House. In his well-known Importunate Authors i 
the importuned patron is a portrait of my father, who, as 
a kindness to Mr. Newton, stood for it. The face is like 
what it must have been when he was young. Mr. N. P. 
Willis (or ‘Namby-Pamby Willis,’ as Lady Blessington 
designated him) was often seen in Mr. Leslie’s studio with 
Bayle Bernard, the playwriter, and many well-known 
Americans.”’ 

Leopold does not attempt to explain how a man can 
be ‘“‘ kindly in manners, good-hearted, and friendly,” yet 
“cold to a degree.” But he gives us a curiously clear 
portrait of this scion of the Puritan Fathers, and one can 
visualise the two artists side by side; the American tall, gaunt, 


and somewhat severe of countenance, the Englishman 
G 





98 John Martin, Painter, 


much shorter, handsome, vivacious, and full of enthusiasms 
which he never hesitated to express. 

Serjeant Thomas quotes a story Martin used to tell 
against himself, as a candidate for Academy honours, at 
the time he was friendly with Leslie. They went to a 
concert together and when, at the end, the National Anthem 
was called for and cheered, Martin hissed. It was the 
time when there was a very strong feeling in the country 
on behalf of Queen Caroline against the King, and Martin 
was, characteristically, a partisan of the unfortunate lady. 

‘“‘T hissed more,” he said, ‘‘ and hissed at Leslie for 


, 


cheering, forgetting ‘God save the King’ altogether. 
Leslie was horrorstruck and fairly ran out of the room. He 
said to me afterwards that he regretted to have been with 
me on such an occasion. I was hurt, for Leslie’s sake, and 
said: ‘ Well, I am sorry I did it, Mr. Leslie, but it shall 
not occur again.’ Leslie was then aiming for the Royal 
Academy, and soon after got it. This alone was enough 
to keep me out, for, in a few hours, this incident spread 
like wildfire, got to the King’s ears, and I was a marked 
man.” 

Another story tells how, later on, when Leslie was an 
Academician, he visited Martin’s studio and, after looking 
coldly at all his finest pictures, chose a small one in a corner 
as the sole object of his admiration. This was a copy of 
one of Martin’s most insignificant subjects by. his son, 
Charles, then a boy, and Martin believed that the slight 
was intentional. If so, it probably dated the end of their 
friendship. 


Sir George Beaumont mentioned by Leopold, was well 





His Life and Times 99 


known at the time as an art patron, and for the active part 
he had taken in the foundation of the British Institution 
for the Promotion of the Fine Arts, first opened on Jan- 
uary 18, 1806. He also made an important bequest to the 
National Gallery of sixteen works of art, valued at £8,000, 
in 1826. He was a staunch friend to John Martin, Leopold 
tells us, and paid his studio frequent visits. Apparently 
he was very fond of giving advice to artists, and fancied 
himself a wonderful judge of colour. Leopold quotes a 
story told him by his father of how Sir George Beaumont 
advised him to change the colour of a certain robe in one 
of his pictures from blue to green, which was immediately 
done to humour him—and washed out again on his de- 
parture. Then, on exhibition of the picture, Sir George 
pointed to his friends the important improvement in effect 
as a result of his suggestion of the substitution of ‘‘ blue for 
green !”’ 

“ But,” says Leopold, ‘the visit to the studio of Sir 
David Wilkie by Sir George is more interesting and affords 
a very good illustration of his (Sir George’s) hallucinations. 
Wilkie, at the time of the visit, was engaged in painting, 
and was deeply immersed in his work ; so much so, indeed, 
as quite to ignore the presence of Sir George. The latter, 
after a time, reminded him of his presence by a slight 
touch; but Sir David seemed like one paralysed or con- 
vulsed, with face nearly black, so intensely was he absorbed. 
Sir George afterwards stated as a fact that ‘ Wilkie had 
forgotten to breathe.’ He often recited the story, his faith 
in which was certainly undoubted.” 

We may picture John Martin, in 1820, amid a growing 





100 John Martin, Painter, 


circle of distinguished friends and patrons, painting his 
next big picture, whose phenomenal success was to blazon 
his name through two continents. If his son’s word may 
be credited, it was talked about long before its public 
appearance, and the artist was inundated with letters from 
many persons distinguished in the world of science, all 
expressing opinions and anxiety as to the novel experiment 
he was about to make. Some of these came from mathe- 
maticians of high standing, chiefly professors at Cambridge. 

We may take this with as much salt as we please, but 
the description of one visit to view the work is perhaps 
worth quoting. 

“ Flattering as these letters may have been,” the urbane 
Leopold continues, ‘‘ certain visits to his studio gave even 
more pleasure—especially a call from the great actress, the 
wonder of the age, Mrs. Siddons—accompanied by Mr. 
Charles Young, known and distinguished as an actor, but 
subsequently as a master at Eton College. 

‘“Mrs. Siddons was enthusiastic in her admiration of 
the painting of Belshazzar. My father, however, expressed 
some doubt as to the action, or attitude, of the chief figure, 
the Prophet Daniel. Mr. Charles Young at once threw 
himself into what he was pleased to say was his idea of the 
action, of which Mrs. Siddons expressed her decided ap- 
proval. My father at once saw his way out of a difficulty 
which had given him much anxiety. ... In dress Mrs. 
Siddons was, at this period, almost Quaker-like in her 
simplicity. Though advanced in years, her face was 
wonderfully striking. In spite of a very evident moustache, 
traces yet remained of her former queen-like, perfect, and 





His Life and Times IOI 


splendid beauty ; her conversation retained all the sparkle 
and interest of her early days ; her fascination and charm, 
indeed, were wonderful. Mr. Charles Young was known 
as the chief representative the stage had yet produced of 
Hamlet.” 

As Leopold was a very small boy at the time, all this 
description must have been quoted from his father, who 
would not be likely to forget the visit paid to his studio by 
the famous actor and actress. Nor is it likely that he 
invented it. 

We may Safely assume that the picture they were 
anxious to see had already excited some attention in artistic 
circles. 








102 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER VI 


The sensation created by Belshazzar’s Feast and its reception by 
the critics. Charles Lamb’s criticism. Exhibition at the 
British Institution Galleries and premium of two hundred 
guineas awarded to Martin. Coloured transparency shown 
in the Strand. Other pictures between 1821-7: The Destruction 
of Pompeii, Seven Plagues of Egypt, Creation, Deluge, etc. 
Martin’s family life at the time. His landscapes. French 
view of his art. 

PERHAPS no picture ever painted has made so great a 

sensation as Belshazzar’s Feast, or brought to its creator a 

more instant fame. It was hung on the line at the British 

Institution exhibition in 1821 and won the prize of two 

hundred guineas presented for the best picture of the year. 

The enthusiasm created by it was profound and phenominal. 

So great was its popularity that the authorities of the British 

Institution were obliged to erect a railing round it, to 

protect it against the pressing crowd that flocked to see it, 

and the exhibition was kept open three weeks longer than 
usual in order that all who wished could see the wonderful 
painting that had set all London talking. 

Martin’s triumph was augmented by the fact that 
Collins, his old master, who had paid him two guineas a 
week only a few years before, offered him a thousand 
guineas for the picture; and he felt a very natural satis- 
faction at the knowledge that the men who had refused to 


‘COL a 


‘“LSV4H S,AVZZVHS 1d 








His Life and Times 103 


work with him would now be made aware of his quality 
and their own folly. But, as he told his friend, Ralph 
Thomas, he had good cause to be grateful to them after 
all, since, by driving him to desperation, they had done him 
a service. He might otherwise have been still plodding 
contentedly at china-painting. 

The picture was evidently painted while he was in a 
condition of almost intoxicated enthusiasm, for Martin 
believed himself to be inspired in his subject. He tells 
how he was spending an evening with the American, Allston 
(introduced by Leslie), and they discussed the story of 
Belshazzar’s Feast, after which he went home and began 
to sketch his conception. Allston, he says, had already 
tried his hand at it, but not, Martin contended, in the right 
way. He submitted his own design to the American artist 
and it was approved. 

Nevertheless, he says, Leslie urged him not to paint it. 
We are not given any reason for this advice, and can only 
assume that the American artist thought the subject 
beyond Martin’s power to execute. But nothing could 
shake the fiery Englishman’s resolve. ‘‘I mean to paint 
it,’ he declared, ‘‘ and the picture shall make more noise 
than any picture ever did before. Only don’t tell anyone 
I said so.’’ His conviction and prediction were alike 
justified. The ‘noise’ was tremendous ! 

Undoubtedly, Martin liked making a noise in this sense ; 
his weakness was the weakness of his family, a certain 
passion for display behind his artistic passion for perfection. 
But his prophecy need not be taken as inspired. Every 
possessor of creative faculty feels, in his first frenzy of 





104 J ohn Martin, Painter, 


enthusiasm at the conception of a new idea, a conviction 
of success, a dazzling vision of the world’s outstretched 
arms. Most of us are doomed to disappointment and failure. 
Martin was gifted with the executive power in addition to 
the conceptive ; and with these, naturally, sublime self- 
confidence. 

It is stated, by the way, that Martin derived much 
help in his conception of Belshazzar’s Feast from the reading 
of a Cambridge prize poem by T. H. Hughes; but this is 
not mentioned in the intimate memoirs before me. 

Collins had the wonderful picture reproduced on glass 
and exhibited as a coloured transparency in his window in 
the Strand, and we may believe that the crowd continually 
before it had to be ‘ moved on’ frequently by the police. 
In the Dictionary of National Biography we read of it as 
follows : 

“ Belshazzar’s Feast is generally regarded as Martin’s 
finest work, and its masses of colossal architecture, retreat- 
ing into infinite perspective, its crowd of small figures, the 
glitter of huge gold candelabra and other details of the 
feast, all seen in a strange variety of light and gloom, 
enhanced by the vivid writing on the wall—produced an 
overwhelming effect on the public.” 

It seems, indeed, from all accounts, that the dear people 
of London went mad about the picture, and no doubt it 
required courage for any critic to fall foul of it. We feel 
this in reading contemporary criticism. There is a certain 
distrust and distaste under much of the praise evoked by 
the painting, partly due—perhaps chiefly due—to its 
extraordinary originality, but little downright denunciation. 








His Life and Times I05 


It was, in some instances, a grudging admiration that 
Martin’s work received, but it was admiration of a kind. 
Even Lamb, in the essay that appears to have been 
called forth by Belshazzar’s Feast,1 pauses now and again 
in his disapproval of Martin’s methods to eulogise his 
remarkable gifts. His criticism is not in the least technical, 
by the way, since the objection he raises is what we should 
call to-day a psychological one. He complains that the 
people in the picture are not acting up to his conception 
of what human beings would naturally do under such 
exceptional circumstances. After stroking the artist with 
a bland appreciation of his “stupendous architectural 
designs,’’ as ‘‘ of the highest order of the material sublime, 
satisfying our most stretched and craving conception of the 
glories of the antique world,”’ the gentle Elia goes on to say : 
“Tt is a pity they were ever peopled. On that side the 
imagination of the artist halts and appears defective.” ~ 
He then proceeds to tell the story of a puerile trick 
played by the Prince Regent in his pavilion at Brighton, 
where, in the midst of a banquet, he had all the lights 
turned off, and illuminated writing cast upon the wall, 
with the words: “ Brighton—Earthquake—Swallow up 
alive,’ and declares that the figures in John Martin’s 
painting have no more tragedy or dignity than if they had 
been the victims of such ‘‘a paltry trick.” 
It does not seem to occur to Lamb that the first shock 
of such a startling phenomenon might well be as effective, 
for the moment, in its operation on the minds of the Regent’s 


1 On the Imaginative Faculty. 





106 John Martin, Painter, 


courtiers as upon those of Belshazzar. Reason would be 
paralysed in either case, and “‘ the huddle, the flutter, the 
bustle, the escape, the alarm—the consternation—the vulgar 
flight, the mere animal anxiety for the preservation of their 
persons,’’ etc., to which he so scornfully objects, would be 
alike in both cases. 

He does not think that the “‘ supernatural terror, caused 
by the Finger of God writing judgments,” 
itself in mere vulgar flight, but would have been met by 
the withered conscience in a different way. 

‘“‘ There is a human fear and a divine fear. The one is 
disturbed, restless, bent upon escape. The other is bowed 


would manifest 


down, effortless, passive.”’ 

Perhaps. But Lamb must have forgotten that the 
artist can seize only a given moment of the emotional 
crisis, the moment of paralysing shock, before the “‘ withered 
conscience ’’”’ can separate its human from its divine fear. 
And thus his criticism on this point seems rather futile. 
But his contention that the earlier masters, who treated 
kindred subjects—Angerstein, Veronese, Titian—would have 
given more dignity to the human figures is more just. 
The whole essay is valuable and should certainly be read 
by anyone interested in the work of John Martin. 

Plainly he was at this time a personage in Lamb’s eyes, 
not only as a public idol but a painter of such quality as to 
challenge comparison with the immortals in art. Bel- 
Shazzar’s Feast forms the pivot upon which the “‘ Essay 
on the Imaginative Faculty ”’ revolves, and John Martin’s 
artistic or psychologic errors serve to illustrate the author’s 
pet theories. 


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TITHdNOd GNV WOANVINOUYAH AO NOILONYLSHd AHL 











His Life and Times 107 


Leopold Martin informs us that the Duke of Buckingham 
and Chandos was anxious to buy Belshazzar’s Feast, and 
made an offer of eight hundred guineas for it, after it had 
been sold to Collins. He then commissiond another picture. 
The Destruction of Herculaneum (sometimes called The 
Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeit), a picture which 
remained at Stowe until the memorable sale there, when 
it was, says Leopold, purchased by the Government for the 
nation. 

There can be no doubt that Belshazzar’s Feast made a 
powerful impression, not only on the general public, but 
on connoisseurs and critics as well. In the Magazine of the 
Fine Arts (vol. i.) we find : 

“The most dazzling and extraordinary work in the 
exhibition is Martin’s Feast of Belshazzar, and one of the 
most original productions of British art. The principle of 
this painter's work differs from those of all preceding 
artists. He appears ambitious to grasp an immensity of 
space, to congregate innumerable multitudes in his scenes.” 

The critic then proceeds to attack the flaws in the 
picture, halting between praise and blame in a manner 
that clearly shows the paralysing effect of the picture on his 
judgment : : 

“The ill-drawn and unexpressive figures of the com- 
position detract, however, very little from its merits, while 
the perspective in which the multitude diminish, or fade, 
in the lengthening halls of these stupendous temples is an 
important beauty of the work. The artist has much to 
learn with regard to colour. The present subject required 
a great contrast of broad shadow, dark and broken tints in 








108 John Martin, Painter, 


the foreground, to give effect to the glare of the super- 
natural handwriting. But Mr. Martin has filled his fore- 
ground with the most gorgeous tones and the most intense 
light ; more powerful indeed than the artificial means 
employed would account for, and displays tints that are 
only visible when very close and illuminated by the strongest 
light of day. Nevertheless, the work is, on the whole, a 
noble effort, and we have much pleasure in congratulating 
the artist on having dared boldly, and realised, a grand 
idea.”’ 

One reads between these lines the state of the critic’s 
mind, wavering between emotional admiration and technical 
disapproval. He is amazed at the imaginative conception 
of the painter, his prodigious force of execution, and still 
more prodigious daring, while endeavouring to set down 
in words all the painter’s shortcomings. 

Martin was by this time thirty-one years of age, and 
had had eight children, six of whom lived to grow up. The 
youngest was a year old. The house at Marylebone seems 
to have been a happy and prosperous one, and his children 
were a source of joy and stimulus to him. He entered into 
all their games with zest. Leopold writes : 

“The childish pleasure with which my father joined us 
boys in a game of marbles was really extraordinary. The 
painting-room was the place of encounter, generally on 
days when the weather prevented him from leaving the 
house. Against the wall hung long lance-wood rulers for 
the purpose of perspective drawing. . . . These were brought 


_ 3 Surely Martin accounts for the light by his blaze of unearthly 
illumination from the Divine writing on the wall. 





His Life and Times 109 


into requisition, being placed round the end of the room 
in a half-circle. A ring was struck with chalk on the floor, 
marbles were placed in a circle, for ‘ knuckle-down’ and 
all the ordinary rules of the game were enforced with the 
strictness of school-boys and with, occasionally, much 
warmth. My father was quite as particular in his marble 
as the most enthusiastic boy fresh from school. I have 
known him play for hours, and with all the glee of the 
youngsters.” 

I give the little picture as it stands, a happy foil to the 
gloom of his great pictures, whereof his admirer, Bernard 
Barton, a ‘ poet ’ of his day, and friend of Charles Lamb, 
wrote : 


“The awful visions haunt me still ! 
In thoughts by day, in dreams by night, 
So well has art’s creative skill 
There shown its fearful might. 


‘“‘ Light and shadow, death and doom, 
Glory’s brightness, horror’s gloom, 
Rocky heights of awful form, 
Grandeur of the bursting storm.”’ 


and so forth, into many pages. 

The painter,whose imagination rioted in scenes of terror, 
showed a very different side to his family and friends, and 
through different accounts of him we are able to see him 
distinctly, with his family growing up round him, and an 
ever-increasing circle of friends, many of distinction, visiting 
him at his weekly ‘ evenings ’ and, no doubt, supplying the 
appreciation and encouragement every artist desires. 

The wife, who bore his children, somewhat over-hastily, 
must have been a very admirable woman and the best 





IO John Martin, Painter, 





possible helpmate for John. She kept, we may be sure, all 
the sordid cares of her household out of sight; soothed 
him, as Leopold says, by her beautiful reading aloud, 
played chess with him, entertained his friends, and brought 
up her family in obedience, love, and reverence. It is not 
so easy to be the wife of a genius successfully that we can 
afford to pass by her excellencies without a word. The 
wife has a powerful rival in her husband’s art, a rival that 
absorbs, commands, and makes him oblivious to every- 
thing else in the world. Makes him, too, apt to be irritable, 
captious, careless of domestic regulations, and abominably 
self-centred. 

I feel certain that John Martin was never punctual to 
his meals ; that he would walk out of the house and stroll 
in the fields just as the joint was being dished up, and that 
he would be irritably impatient if the baby cried when he 
was holding forth on his pet subjects or trying to achieve a 
certain effect in a picture requiring great concentration ; 
that he would be subject to paroxysms of wild elation and 
sink immediately afterwards to the depths of suicidal 
despair. But there is every reason to believe that he was 
less moody and difficile than many of his kind ; that he had 
a naturally sunny temperament, and could paint gloom and 
terror without being gloomy or terrific. His children were 
never frightened of him. 

He was painting steadily and his fame was spreading 
over the Continent. Asa French critic wrote a little later : 
“Le Festin de Belthazar fut déclaré la merveille du siécle 

. et chaque année parassait un nouveau prodige: en 
1822 La Destruction d’ Herculaneum, en 1823 Les Sept Plates 


iasesethenrsinessasieeniemnesteme ceeettenaenaatiaieenaenemiseinitiadietneeetinmesmemeeiammeimemmeanmeneemaasanaaere 
His Life and Times III 








@Egypie, en 1824 La Creation et Le Deluge 1826, La Chute 


de Ninive 1828.” } 
But these were not the only works produced in those 


years. The following are chronicled in the official lists of 
the Royal Academy and British Institution exhibitors. 


British Institution : 

1823.—Adam and Eve Entertaining the Angel Raphael 
(“ Son of Heaven and Earth attend: that thou art happy 
owe to God ; that thou continuest such, owe to thyself.’’— 
Milton). 

1824.—Syrinx. 

1826.—Two Studies from Nature. 
Royal Academy : 

1821.—Revenge (‘‘ Revenge impatient rose. He threw 
his bloodstained sword in thunder down.’’—Collin’s Ode to 
the Passtons). 

1823.—The Paphian Bower (‘‘ The Graces there were 
gathering posies, and found young Love among the roses ”’). 

1824.—Landscape Composition; Design for the Seventh 
Plague of Egypt. 


There were doubtless other pictures exhibited in 
other galleries and unchronicled. Many landscapes, cer- 
tainly, for he painted a great number. Fourteen were sold 
at Christie’s in 1861, the property of Charles Scarisbrick, 
Esq., besides seven subject-pictures, including The Deluge 


1 John Martin, a short biography by Charles Blanc, published in 
a series entitled Sujets Biblique et Poetiques. 





112 John Martin, Painter, 


and Fall of Nineveh. And in the year of his death, 1854, 
a collection of fifty-nine water-colour drawings by him were 
sold by the same firm. We do not know when these were 
painted, but they were, in all probability early work, as we 
know that his time was more absorbed later in engraving 
and making plans for the improvement of London. Of 
these water-colours a critic in the Atheneum wrote a long 
and effusive appreciation, from which a few extracts may 
be here given: 

‘These works, beautiful in execution, finished with all 
the dainty minuteness of even a woman’s hand, and deep 
and bright in colour, present us with a new view of the 
artist’s character. He who revelled in vastness and sub- 
limity, in gulfs lit by the white glare of the lightning’s 
touch—in misty seas swelling into snowy Alps of foam—in 
all the darkness of Malboge and all the flames of Purgatory 
—could go out and watch, it seems, with a poet’s love, the 
pools where the water-lilies lié asleep, the golden waves of 
the ripe corn rippling into furrows of exceeding lustre, the 
pale shadows that the trees cast on sunless days, and rivers 
winding at their own sweet will—under the benediction of 
the sun. It did us good to see the same mind exulting in 
the blue chasms and frozen billows of Alpine scenery—in the 
pitchy tempest terror of Belshazzar’s murky hall—and then 
to behold the creator of these wonders go forth to be lulled 
to sleep on the soft breast of our common Mother Nature, 
as if in these drawings a reaction from the wildness of his 
imagination had led Mr. Martin to display his tenderest 
feeling; .°) 4. 

‘The best of the whole collection, for finish and tone, 





His Life and Times 113 


were the views from the Wynd Cliff, the autumn foliage being 
composed of a depth of transparent and glowing colours 
we never saw so richly heaped together, or so finely con- 
trasted with the purple of the retreating distance, with the 
cliffs of Chepstow and the waves of the Severn white in the 
horizon.” 

One is inclined to wonder whether Martin might not 
have succeeded in attaining a more lasting fame had he 
studied and produced landscapes only, and made no at- 
tempts to embody the phantasmagoria of his powerful but 
somewhat riotous imagination. The only instruction he 
seems to have received was in the school of landscape, and 
it might have been better for his ultimate success if he had 
not antagonised the critics of his day, and of days to come, 
by painting pictures that were, in a sense, beyond criticism, 
daring innovations in art, puzzling and paralysing where 
they failed to achieve a purely emotional effect. In Eng- 
land landscape has always been more appreciated than 
subject-painting. 

_ The French writer already quoted observes, as the cause 
of John Martin’s decadence in popularity, that the English 
have never encouraged “‘ les ambitieux de grande peinture,”’ 
their taste being more for “‘ les peintres de portraits, de scénes 
familiére, de paysage et de marine.” And, further on, he 
quotes the words of Gustave Planché in 1834, who seems to 
echo Wilkie’s dictum: ‘‘ Martin is a phenomenon,” for 
this is what he says of the English painter : 

“Martin n’est pas un peintre. C’est une puissance 
mystérieux qui n’a de rang ni de place nulle part, qui se 


soucie peu de la forme de sa pensée, pour vu qu’il émeuve, 
H 





II4 John Martin, Painter, 


qu'il étonne et qu'il galvanise la pensée d’autroi. II se 
complait dans une pogsie sans nom, embryonnaire, inachevée 
confusé, qui excite l’imagination jusqu’a l’envivrement, mais 
qui ne laisse jamais dans l’ame du spectateur une impression 
complete et durable. C’est le peintre des poétes, c’est le 
poéte des peintres, et pourtant il n’est ni un peintre ni un 
poéte.”’ 

This point of view is interesting and suggestive, in 
spite of its extravagant generalisation, as it draws the fine 
line which, I have already suggested, may lie between the 
genius and the perfect artist. But is it just to say that 
Martin’s work did not leave “on the soul of the spectator ”’ 
a complete and durable impression? I think not. One 
may criticise adversely, but one cannot forget a Martin 


picture. Its impression is permanent to an extraordinary 


degree. 

But such controversial matter is out of place here. We 
have followed John Martin to the zenith of his career as a 
painter, and will pause to consider his environment and 
friends. 





His Life and Times II5 


CHAPTER VII 


Friends and new acquaintances. Forgotten celebrities. The 
Mummy and Frankenstein. Thesongs of otherdays. Braham 
and his beautiful daughter, Tom Moore, and Samuel Lover. 
Tom Hood and his homes. William Godwin and Bunyan’s 
grave. The Landseers, Harrison Ainsworth, Charles Dickens, 
George Cruikshank, and Douglas Jerrold. 

ALL the forgotten world of old London is evoked by Leopold 
Martin’s pictures of his father’s ‘ Evenings at Home,’ and 
the gay company that foregathered at his house in Alsopp 
Terrace. Some of the celebrities he prattles of have long 
since fallen into the dust of oblivion. Who has heard of 
Jane Webb, who wrote ‘ that extraordinary work—really 
striking for a young woman—The Mummy”? She was, 
says Leopold, like a daughter to his mother, who loved 
her as her own child. The Mummy brought her a husband, 
for Mr. J. C. Loudon, the great botanical writer, on reading 
the book expressed his full determination to marry the 
author. ‘‘ He knew of no work like it ; nothing so original, 
nothing that was its equal except Frankenstein.”’ 

‘Where is dot barty now?” and why has Frankenstein 
come down to us while The Mummy is unknown? But if 
Miss Jane Webb is fassée in the worst sense of the word, 
such names as Braham, Moore, Hood, Godwin, Caroline 
Norton, L. E. L. Bartolozzi, Harrison Ainsworth, and 


116 John Martin, Painter, 


others mentioned by Leopold, still have an old-world charm 
about them and are able to stir in us faint memories of a 
bygone day, the day of crinolines, pork-pie hats, tight 
trousers, and high stocks. 

Of Braham Leopold writes: ‘‘ When last seen at my 
father’s he still retained a ‘ 
voice to startle, delight, and charm. What a glory it was 
to be astounded by his bursts of The Bay of Biscay and 
Hearts of Oak, or the deep feeling of his Tom Bowling! 
As sung by John Braham they were an everlasting memory. 
To the end of all he was the wonder and delight of his 
friends. Few could understand that he had first been 
heard in public as far back as the year 1787, when he ap- 
peared at Goodman’s Field Theatre under the name of 
Master Abrahams.” 

When he tries to describe Miss Braham, the singer’s 
daughter, Leopold becomes dithyrambic. ‘‘ It is difficult to 
describe, or attempt to describe, so remarkable a beauty,” 


voice to wake the dead ’—a 


he exclaims, ‘‘ and one so distinguished, at a future period, 
in the political world. . . . The energetic character of her 
mind gave her, in after times, power both to lead and 
command. She certainly had more genius than generally 
seems to fall to the share of such startling and rare beauties. 
.. . At once high-minded, resolute, impassioned, she was 
truly magnificent.” 

This prodigious lady, it appears, had four husbands: 

“First the Hon. Mr. Waldegrave: then his cousin, the 
Earl of Waldegrave (by marriage she became the possessor 
of Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill Mansion and estate) ; 
thirdly, Mr. Vernon Harcourt, son of the Archbishop of 





His Life and Times II7 


York; and, finally, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, afterwards 
Lord Carlingford. No woman ever attained such political 
influence as Miss Braham, when Countess of Waldegrave, 
or made her house a centre of such political intrigue or 
power, Lady Holland and Lady Palmerston excepted.” 
He gossips about Bartolozzi (son of the great engraver) 
and his charming daughters, Madame Vestris and Mrs. 
Anderson ; of Tom Moore and his warbling ‘‘ melody after 
melody—his own Irish—making the evening charming, 
sweet, and memorable’’; of Samuel Lover singing The 
Angel's Whisper, Rory O’Moore, The Low-backed Car, and 
“other exquisite ditties.”’ He recalls one petit souper, 
after an ‘ Evening at Home,’ at which were present Thomas 
Hood, William Godwin, Allan Cunningham, John and 
Charles Landseer (father and brother of Edwin), S. C. Hall 
(husband of the Irish writer whose stories had then a great 
vogue), Emma Roberts, and Jane Webb; and relates how 
Tom Hood “ requested permission to propose a toast, as he 
desired particularly to wish future success to art, and to 
couple the toast with the name of Charles Landseer, and 
the ‘Painters and Glaziers. 


>») 


Thereupon, he states, 
Landseer rose to return thanks and requested permission 
to couple the name of Mr. Thomas Hood with ‘ The Paper 
Stainers.’ Jests which were received with great merriment. 

He tells us of a visit to Hood before the poet was known 
to the world, and was about to try his fate with a farce at 
the Adelphi Theatre, entitled York and Lancaster, in which 
Matthews and Yates took the parts of rival schoolmasters. 
On the first night of the production Hood invited John 
Martin and his boy, Leopold, to “ see the fun,” and they went 








118 John Martin, Painter, 


first to tea with the Hoods at the Adelphi. They spent a 
most enjoyable evening, says Leopold, but the play was not 
a success. 

Later on they paid the poet a visit at Lake House, 
Wanstead, “a charming cottage on an island in the lake 
in Wanstead Park’’; and again to his cottage at Winch- 
more Hill, a place with very beautiful grounds and lovely 
views over Surrey, Essex, and Middlesex. There they met 
the Reynolds, Mrs. Hood’s two brothers, who afterwards 
became so famous as writers and publishers of sensational 
romance. 

Leopold Martin depicts Hood as a disappointed man, 
convinced that he might have been either a Hogarth or a 
great poet if he had only been taught to draw properly, or 
had not followed the line of least resistance in writing comic 
poetry. The failure of his first volume of serious poems 
and the success of his humorous verse, made this almost 
inevitable, however, to a man with a wife and family. His 
wretched health would doubtless account for the melancholy 
moods that impressed the volatile Leopold. 

Of William Godwin, Shelley’s father-in-law, and a 
friend of John Martin’s, he gives us a somewhat interesting 
impression. 

“In person,’ he says, ‘‘ Godwin was short and stout, 
with a remarkably large and curiously-developed double 
skull, nearly bald, the little hair remaining on the temples 
at the back was perfectly silvery. His eyes were deep- 
sunken, shrewd, keen, and lively, and retained all the fire 
of youth. His admiration for the acting of Edmund Kean 
was truly wonderful, It was at all times his boast that the 





His Life and Times IQ 


great tragedian had never performed in London when he, 
Godwin, had not been present. His bald head certainly 
never failed to mark the centre of the crowded pit. Well I 
remember an arrangement made by him with my father, 
to accompany him, not to see Kean, but to visit the burial- 
ground of Bunhill Fields of Finsbury, the Campo Santo of 
the Dissenters. Godwin’s wish was to show my father how 
little now remained to mark what he termed the hallowed 
spots of the earth! When the Great Plague of 1665 broke 
out, Bunhill (or as it was then termed, Bonehill) was made 
use of as a pest field, or common place of interment. 
When the plague was over, this great pit, or general grave, 
was enclosed, and subsequently leased to several important 
dissenting sects, who conscientiously objected to the burial 
service in the Book of Common Prayer. 

“William Godwin took much trouble to indicate an 
altar-tomb, one of the few remaining, which stands at the 
east end of the ground, placed there in memory of Dr. 
Thomas Godwin who diedin 1679. This was the independent 
| preacher who attended Oliver Cromwell on his death-bed. 
Cromwell had then his moments of misgiving and asked of 
Godwin—so told William Godwin to my father, pointing 
out the tomb—if the ‘ elect ’ could never finally fall ? 

““ Nothing could be more true,’ was Godwin’s reply. 

‘“* Then I am safe,’ said Cromwell, ‘for I am sure that 
once I was in a state of grace.’ 

‘“ After pointing out the forgotten grave of Dr. John 
Owen, Dean of Christchurch and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford 
when Cromwell was Chancellor—the divine who preached 
the first sermon before Parliament after the execution of 





120 John Martin, Painter, 


Charles I.—Godwin pointed out the place where John 
Bunyan lay and ‘expressed the greatest indignation that 
no inscription marked the place of interment ; particularly 
as it is said that many had made it their desire to be buried 
as near as possible to the spot where his remains were 
deposited. He was also in high indignation at there being 
no memorial to the memory of George Fox, the founder of 
the sect of Quakers, and strongly urged my father to join 
him in an appeal for public subscriptions for such an 
object.” 

It must surely have surprised Leopold to hear the 
notorious free-thinker proposing to collect money for the 
graves of John Bunyan and George Fox. 

The Landseers seem to have been great friends of John 
Martin. Edwin was two years younger than Charles, who 
was also an artist, and six years younger than Thomas, the 
engraver ; but we hear that he and John were intimates, 
despite some difference in years. 

“My father had known him from his boyhood,” says 
Leopold, “‘and he (Edwin) knew no other home but The 
Cottage, No. 1, St. John’s Wood Road. It was a long, low 
house enclosed in a secluded garden. The studio, its chief 
room, was large, low, and dark, the floor covered with skins 
of lions, tigers, and deer. The windows—none of which 
faced the north—the usual aspect selected by artists— 
opened into the garden, which was quite a zoological one. 
There was an eagle, chained to the branch of a tree; a fox, 
also chained not far off; more than one dog, all splendid of 
their sort—an Alpine mastiff, a Scotch deer-hound (a 
present from Sir Walter Scott), a Dandy Dinmont, and other 








His Life and Times I21 





terriers. In a loose-box might be seen a really beautiful 
pony of Turkish breed—quite a study—one often painted 
by its master, but hardly the horse such an animal painter 
would be expected to ride. Landseer, however, was but an 
indifferent horseman.” 

He proceeds to discuss Edwin Landseer’s passion for 
gambling and relates how he was saved from sheer ruin 
by his friend, Mr. J. Bell. Although not given to melan- 
choly, his spirits were apt to fall very low over his losses, 
and on one such occasion, we are told, John Martin found 
him so depressed that he carried him off for a walk. They 
met a lady in an open carriage who bowed to Martin and 
received in return the usual salute. 

The story must be told in Leopold’s own way. 

““* Good God!’ said Edwin Landseer, ‘what have you 
done! Do you value your reputation? How fortunate 
that you have been seen only by me! I am too old and 
true a friend to mention a matter so unfortunate, and which 
might quite destroy your future prospects.’ 
“Startled, and not understanding what crime he had 
committed, my father answered, ‘ Why, I have only raised 
my hat to Mrs. Fonblanque, a very charming woman, in 
return for the honour she did me.’ 

““* Yes,’ returned Landseer, ‘and by so doing you have 
risked all your future prospects and respectability in the 
eyes of all you have to look to. Why, her husband, Mr. 
Albany Fonblanque, is a Radical !’”’ 

We give John Martin credit for enough humour to 
accept this as chaff, but Leopold seems to take it seriously 





I22 John Martin, Painter, 


enough and observes that, even after that, his father did 
not cut the lady. 

He goes on to tell us that when the couple returned from 
their walk in the park they found the Rev. Sidney Smith 
(Peter Plimley) on the point of leaving his card at Landseer’s 
door. Landseer welcomed him with effusion and the three 
friends entered together. He was anxious, says Leopold 
to make a sketch of the famous divine, but Sidney Smith 
had a serious dislike to sitting for his portrait. “‘ Friend, 
is thy servant a dog? ”’ he exclaimed, and there the matter 
ended. 

One other incident connected with Sir Edwin is given 
by Leopold as follows : 

‘“‘ T well remember Edwin Landseer bringing the Duchess 
of Bedford to my father’s painting-room. Her Grace was 
delighted with a slight study (not an hour’s work) of a rose 
with some drops of rain on it. My father intended to 
present it to her, but the following day Sir Edwin Landseer 
called to state how much the Duchess wished to place the 
sketch in her boudoir, and pressed my father to give it to 
him at once. Her Grace wrote thanking my father for 
parting with the sketch and enclosing a cheque for one 
hundred guineas. The study is now at Woburn Abbey and 
is the only work of that description my father ever painted.” 

Harrison Ainsworth was another friend of John Martin, 
and Leopold gives, as one of his most pleasant reminiscences, 
an afternoon spent with the famous novelist at his home, 
Kensal Manor House. From the piazza at the side of the 
house, he observes, was a magnificent view, extending to 
the Surrey hills as far as Guildford, a distance of thirty 





His Life and Times 123 


miles. It was a one-floored house, a bungalow, we should 
call it to-day, and covered a good deal of ground. As 
usual, they went a-walking, and visited the cemetery to 
see the monument just erected there by Soyer, “ the dis- 
tinguished chef of the Reform Club,”’ to his wife. 

“Mr. Ainsworth stated that he had a capital joke con- 
nected with it. The wife of M. Soyer was a clever painter 
as well as writer, but equally distinguished as a scolding 
virago with a nagging, violent temper. Yet, in spite of all, 
he put up with her with uncomplaining fortitude, and on 
her death, out of respect for her talents, he determined to 
build a splendid monument to her memory. At a loss for 
an inscription he thought he might presume to request one 
from the Rev. Sydney Smith, as he was often at the Reform 
Club. ‘An epitaph,’ said the rev. gentleman. ‘By all 
means; nothing can be more simple. Give me a pen; 
two words will suffice.’ With quite a serious face he then 
wrote : 

‘Soyez tranquille.’ 

“Soyer thanked the wit, saying it was explicit and 
expressive.” 

Whether Mr. Ainsworth’s “ capital joke ’’ has become a 
chestnut by this time or not I am unable to say, or whether 
the suggested mot was put onthe tombstone. After leaving 
the cemetery we read how the friends wandered on to ‘“‘ the 
well-known, old-fashioned inn, The Bell, in the quiet village 
of Kilburn,”’ where Mr. Ainsworth discoursed eloquently of 
Dick Turpin, to amuse young Leopold, and told him it 
was from there the famous highwayman started on his 
memorable ride to York, 


124 John Martin, Painter, 


‘ All this was founded, he said, on fact; as a clear 
proof of which he took us up a quiet lane to a small tavern 
at West End, Hampstead, the direct way to the North Road. 
At this tavern, Mr. Ainswoth stated, Turpin took a parting 
drink, making himself perfectly well known, so that an 
alibt might be proved, for he had fully made up his mind 
that Black Bess should carry him to York in what would 
be thought an impossible time. This tradition and the 
end of poor Black Bess, he said, had made his novel (Rook- 
wood) one of the most popular of the day, and given him a 
name in the literary world.” 

In view of the fact that Dick Turpin never did ride to 
York, and Harrison Ainsworth had constructed his story 
out of a mere legend and his own vivid imagination, this 
is interesting. He has admitted that he had no direct 
evidence of the famous ride,’ and that the only authentic 
evidence of such a journey taken by Turpin was from 
Whitechapel to Long Sutton, in Lincolnshire ; but he could 
not resist impressing the boy with a ‘clear proof’ that 
satisfied his credulity—obviously for the rest of his life, 
since Leopold evinces no doubt of the facts of the story. 

He gives us an intimate little sketch of Charles Dickens 
in 1835, or thereabouts : 

“The Sketches by Boz then being published in the Morning 
Chronicle were the talk of all, and my father was much 
pleased to meet the author. Charles Dickens at this period, 
when but a few weeks married, was full of fun and dash. 
His fair hair waved long and freely over a white and un- 





1 Life of William Harrison Ainsworth, by S. M. Ellis. 








His Life and Times 125 





wrinkled forehead and a clear and healthful complexion ; 
his eyes were large, bright, and penetrating, and he had a 
smile of glee for all. The cutting of the Strafford-formed 
face and the full upper lip were not then concealed by the 
thick beard and moustaches so marked a distinction at a 
future period. Nor had care ploughed its lines; yet the 
countenance had already acquired all the idea of a great 
intellectual presence. 

“The newly-married wife, Miss Hogarth, was a quiet, 
delicate, light-haired, fair-eyed lady, seemingly quite without 
natural power or spirit, or natural force of manner, to 
guide or control such a volatile character as that of Charles 
Dickens. In reality, however, she became remarkable for 
carrying out the very stringent rules required by domestic 
economy and regularity of life. However numerous the 
guests might be, either at Gadshill or Boulogne (a favourite 
summer abode of ‘ Boz’) so methodical was Dickens, that 
you were certain to find each morning, placed on your 
breakfast plate, a programme for the day—to be strictly 
attended to in one respect, at least, that of being punctual 
to the hour of dinner. The programmes were in the beau- 
tiful handwriting of Charles Dickens, not in that of his 
wife. Everything seemed to be under his own arrange- 
ment, and all domestic matters were his.”’ 

These programmes, by the way, do not afford a very 
good illustration of Dickens’ volatile character! Leopold 
goes on to discuss the old question of the novelist’s relations 
with his wife, and gives his opinion of the matter for what 
itis worth. ‘‘ We must not think,” he says, “‘ that his wife 
was a scolding virago, or unbeloved. It may be enough 


126 John Martin, Painter, 


to say that she was prosaic, while Charles Dickens was all 
imagination and tender melancholy, which, perhaps, at 
home looked like sullenness.’’ He admits that the Dickens’ 
home was not “ without chilliness and irksomeness.”’ 

Of Douglas Jerrold and George Cruikshank he writes : 

“One could not but remark the hawk-like head of 
Douglas Jerrold, one so full of venom that he was quite 
willing to sacrifice the feelings of his oldest and dearest 
friends for a sarcasm. The more bitter the retort, the 
more palatable it was to one of his type. It was not 
everyone, however, who detected the serpent couched 
beneath his smile; for he seemed to be weighing every 
word, taking gauge and measurement of the intellect and 
temperament of every guest. In conversation his words 
flew forth, and his dazzling, but bitter, wit, lit up all 
around.”’ 

“George Cruikshank had a similar expression but it 
was of a more kindly nature. He was ever seemingly 
watching for a likely subject to sketch, when unobserved, 
on one of his nails—a practice he was given to. He was 
known invariably to arrive home from a party with a 
sketch of a face or head drawn on each finger-nail, which 
rough memorandum was again noted down previous to the 
usual nightly ablutions. It is generally understood that 
he invented, or, at any rate, introduced, the false wristband 
or shirt cuff, for the sake of its convenience in memorandum, 
sketching on it in society when unobserved. It is also 
understood that his washerwoman found a market for them 
in some private quarter and substituted new cuffs for those 
found so valuable. 








His Life and Times 127 


“ Among the artists congregated at George Cruikshank’s 
was the delicate and tender painter, Frank Stone,! with 
whom Douglas Jerrold seemed to be on the most friendly 
terms, addressing him as ‘ Friend Tombstone,’ a designation 
resulting from the unfortunate breaking up of many under- 
takings with which Frank Stone had become connected— 
chiefly art or social clubs.” 

We shall deal with these first literary and artistic clubs 
in another chapter, and close this with an account of a 
driving holiday taken by John Martin with his son. No 
date is given, but it must have been at a time when he was 
beginning to turn his attention to engineering schemes, for 
Leopold says that they went first to Long Sutton, in order 
to investigate the construction of the extensive, pile-built 
road through the marsh there—a long swamp extending for 
miles. The fact that they took a driving tour, because the 
line of coaches did not suit John Martin’s plan of campaign, 
also indicates a degree of prosperity in his fortunes. 

Leopold tells us that they paid a half-crown toll to see 
‘the works and vast improvements suggested and ap- 
proved by my father’s friend, the engineer to the Sutton 
Trust,”’ and then goes on to describe the journey thus: 

“Our journey was then continued to the interesting old 
town without a thoroughfare, Lynn, with its fine old church 
and curious gate—the only entrance, except by river, for 
the town is protected by extensive sea banks. Though 
Lynn has much to interest the antiquary, my father’s chief 
object in visiting the district was to see the wonders of 





1 A.R.A., father of Marcus Stone. 





128 John Martin, Painter, 


Lord Leicester’s splendid mansion of Holkham, built on 
ground reclaimed from the sea; the wonderful work of the 
well-known, fine old squire, Coke of Norfolk. The park is 
the wonder, but the mansion, Holkham Hall, contains 
much of interest. The collection of pictures is important, 
the furniture is perfect in its quaint character, and the 
sculpture is very fine. My father had often been advised 
to visit the place by his friend, Sir Francis Chantrey, a great 
friend of Lord Leicester's. 

“After inspecting about all his lordship could well 
show, we repaired to the old fishing villages of Wells and 
Hunstanton, at that time miserably poor piaces. On 
leaving Holkham we took, at the urgent request of Lord 
Leicester, the road by Sneyndsham, in order to see Castle 
Acre Priory. On arriving, we found, to our great vexation, 
that the splendid ruin was already overrun by a large 
party of tourists, fully engaging the attention of the old 
people who usually acted as guides. This, however, instead 
of turning out a loss, proved truly fortunate ; for, by good 
luck, we found a highly-educated archeologist in the person 
of a kind and wonderfully benevolent-looking lady in Quaker 
costume, who was one of the party of visitors. Observing 
our want of a guide, she, in the kindest possible manner, 
offered to act as cicerone and furnish whatever information 
she possibly could. 

‘This lady proved herself perfectly well-informed of 
the history of the castle and locality from the earliest 
period, pointing out all the architectural beauties (and they 
were many), and particularly the domestic remains, such 
as the buttery, the bakery, the kitchen, with its great open 





His Life and Times 129 


space for fire; the cellars, the gardens with fish ponds, 
orchards, and wells, together with nearly every remaining 
relic likely to interest. She then inquired whether we had 
seen the various places or points of interest in the district, 
such as Narford, Wimpole, Holkham, Houton and other 
well-known spots, telling my father what pleasure it would 
have given her to have introduced him to her brother, Mr. 
Daniel Gurney, at his place at Runcton, near Lynn, though 
she trusted at some future time to have that pleasure ; for 
she was sure that her brother’s wife, Lady Harriet Gurney, 
would be greatly pleased to know my father. The lady 
evidently knew him herself, but how he was quite unable 
to say. 

“On leaving the Abbey, my father thanked her for all 
her kindness and for the great pleasure she had rendered 
him ; and informed her that, if at any time she visited 
London, it would give him delight to render her any service, 
and to see her at his house. At the same time he handed 
her his card. Glancing at it, she cordially acknowledged 
the civility, intimating the pleasure she should receive in 
visiting him and seeing his works. . . . She also handed 
him a card. Imagine my father’s great satisfaction on its 
proving to be that of the celebrated Mrs. Fry, the well- 
known philanthropist, the visitor of prisons and prisoners. 
Mrs. Fry and John Howard, with equal and true benevolent 
charity, each in his and her time, entered the prison houses, 
both at home and abroad, like angels, rendered aid and gave 
comfort where it was never more needed. My father felt 
that he had seldom been more highly and truly compli- 


mented than by the kind attention of Mrs. Fry. 
I 





130 John Martin, Painter, 


‘“We drove on to Ely, for the sake of calling on my 
father’s old friend, Dean Peacock and seeing what he was 
doing in the way of restorations. The Dean, in the most 
kindly and learned manner, explained all the work in 
progress in the beautiful cathedral. The restoration was 
being effected entirely at the Dean’s own cost, and he 
showed consummate talent and great liberality in dealing 
with this truly interesting edifice. 

‘‘Cambridge was our next resting-place, my father 
looking up more old friends, equally distinguished—the 
Master of Trinity and Professor Sedgwick; the former a 
noble-looking, portly Churchman, and the latter a sparkling, 
eagle-eyed man of science. Both seemed pleased to see my 
father and took him over the Fitzwilliam Museum... . 
Professor Sedgwick highly complimented my father . . 
and this great geologist expressed his approbation of the 
treatment of the Restoration of the Land of the Iguanodon 
given by my father to his friend, Dr. Mantell (to be used in 
illustrating his Wonders of Geology) as his idea of the country 
of the ichthyosaurus, the iguanodon, and other extinct marine 
animals.” 

We must now go back to somewhat earlier days and review 
the work John Martin was doing while he was making so 
many friends and meeting so many celebrities of his day. 





His Life and Times I31 


cn ph ee rsp eneheneeeenipenseeee nen 


CHAPTER VIII 


The three ‘Deluge’ pictures. Visit of Cuvier to Martin’s studio 
and his approval of the phenomena in The Deluge. Martin’s 
lengthy descriptions of his paintings. King William IV.’s 
private view of The Fall of Nineveh. Prince Albert’s apprecia- 
tion and suggestions. Other pictures between 1821-41. 
Foreign honours, medals, diplomas, and gifts from reigning 
monarchs. Visits of the Buonapartes, Lady Blessington and 
Count D’Orsay to his studio. The ‘Deluge’ pictures, and 
enormous output between 1823-50. 

AFTER The Paphian Bower and Adam and Eve Entertaining 

the Angel Raphael in 1823—large pictures exhibited at the 

Royal Academy and British Institution respectively—Martin 

painted nothing of any importance until The Deluge in 

1826, and as this was one of the pictures that most helped 

to establish his fame, we must give some attention to it.! 
It was exhibited at the British Exhibition, bearing the 


following characteristic inscription : 


“This representation of the universal inundation of the 
earth comprehends that portion of time when the valleys 
are supposed to be completely overflowed, and the inter- 
mediate hills nearly overwhelmed, and the people who have 
escaped from drowning there are flying to the rocks and 
mountains for safety. 


1 It was in the possession of Sir Edward Naylor Leyland, Bart., 
until June 1923, when it was sold, with The Fall of Nineveh (and 
seven other paintings by Martin), by Messrs. Knight, Frank & 
Rutley in the great sale at Hyde Park House. 








132 John Martin, Painter, 


‘“‘ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second 
month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day 
were all the fountains of the deep broken up ea: the bahia 
of Heaven were opened.’’—Genesis viii. 12.’ 

In The Observer of February 26, 1854, obituary notice of 
Martin, we find this picture alluded to as follows : 

“In 1826, he painted The Deluge, so celebrated by Sir 
Edward Bulwer Lytton in his England and the English, 
where he eulogises it as the greatest conception ever repre- 
sented on canvas. That opinion met with the sanction of 
foreign artists and foreign critics, when it was afterwards 
exhibited at the French Exhibition, and none was warmer 
in approbation of his treatment of the fearful subject than 
the great Cuvier.” 

Apropos of this we have two mentions of the ‘great 
Cuvier’s’ visit to Martin’s studio from the pens of Leopold 
Martin and Ralph Thomas. As usual, Leopold’s account 
is the more flowery. He writes: ) | 

‘The visit of a most illustrious savant to my father’ - 
studio during his temporary absence is to me of peculiar 
and special interest, chiefly on account of the honour it 
conferred of receiving so highly distinguished a foreigner. 
I was alone, reading in the studio, when Dick, my father’s 
attendant, announced ‘ Mrs. Lee and a gentleman.’ I had 
previously known Mrs. Lee as a Miss Bowdiet, a writer of 
some note. The accompanying ‘ gentleman,’ an elderly, 
portly, fine-looking man, was, Mrs. Lee informed me, very 
anxious, before leaving England, for an introduction to my 
father, and for permission to inspect his paintings. The 
one on the easel at the moment was the important work, 


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His Life and Times 133 


The Deluge. After expressing great regret and disappoint- 
ment at my father’s absence, the visitor placed a chair in 
front of the picture and continued for a lengthy period to 
gaze, without a word or remark, seemingly wrapped in 
thought. 

‘“‘ At length he rose, with the exclamation ‘ Mon Dieu!’ 
at the same time taking a small bouquet from his button- 
hole, placing it on his card, and depositing both on my 
father’s palette. He took his departure without another 
word. On leaving the house, however, he turned, gazed for 
a moment, raised his hat, made a profound bow and entered 
the carriage with Mrs. Lee. With some curiosity I returned 
to the painting-room, wondering who the visitor could be. 
Think of my delight! The card was that of the Baron 


Cuvier.”’ ; 
Says Ralph Thomas, in his diary : 


“February 17th, 1834.—On Monday I was looking 
with Martin at his picture of The Deluge. He said, ‘ Baron 
Cuvier came to see me when he was in London, on account 
of my having, in my Deluge, made the event the consequence 
of sun, moon and comet in conjunction; the moon and 
comet drawing the water over the earth. This was Cuvier’s 
opinion, he told me so, and he expressed himself highly 
pleased that I had entertained the same notion.’ (This 
picture was, after much working up, exhibited at the Royal 
Academy in 1837.) And then, as to the age of the world, 
he said geology taught us that we could not calculate, but 
it was clear the world was millions of years old and would 
continue growing older for millions of years to come. And 
when the moon and comet came together again, their 





134 John Martin, Painter, 


attraction would be so great that another part of the world 
would be again deluged.” 

Thomas adds a note that “there is something like this 
in Plato.” 

We note that the picture, ‘‘ after much working up,” was 
exhibited at the Academy in 1837, nine years after his Fall 
of Nineveh had appeared, and added to his great reputation, 
receiving the gold medal of the Salon and diplomas 
constituting Martin a member of the Academies of 
Brussels and Antwerp. With that matter, and his 
knighthood by the King of the Belgians, we shall have to 
deal later. 

It would appear somewhat unlikely that his picture of 
The Deluge should have been painted fifteen years before 
The Eve of the Deluge, which was exhibited at the Academy 
in 1840 and at the British Institution in 1841, if 
we had not the following information given us by his 
son : 

‘“‘ Gratified and flattered as my father may from time 
to time have felt on receiving at his studio,” he writes, 
“foreign savants and others of remarkable distinction, he 
never felt more highly honoured than by the visits of His 
Royal Highness, Prince Albert. The Prince Consort 
usually paid these visits on horseback, accompanied either 
by equerry orcompanion. A groom was the only attendant. 
Special satisfaction was received from one visit. The chief 
picture in the studio at the time was The Deluge, then, to 
some extent being repainted. I have often heard my 
father say with what pleasure he received and what great 
benefit he reaped from the enlightened criticisms of the 





His Life and Times 135 


Prince. They deeply impressed him as being judicious, 
thoughtful, and kind, indicating a truly refined and ex- 
tensive knowledge of art. 

‘“‘ After a lengthened inspection of The Deluge his Royal 
Highness was graciously pleased to suggest that it should 
make one of a series of subjects connected with the event 
—The Eve of the Deluge, The Deluge, and The Assuaging 
of the Waters. At the same time the Prince commissioned 
The Eve of the Deluge for the collection at Buckingham 
Palace. My father felt the high compliment and the 
Prince’s suggestion as to the series was destined very soon 
to be carried out to the full extent.”’ 

A visit from the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland 
followed, ending in a commission for The Assuaging of the 
Waters for the Duchess’s private collection. 

“ Thus,” adds the writer, “‘ the three connected pictures 
went into three different collections.” 

So we know why the painting, which should come second 
in the group of three, came first. It was painted and 
exhibited at the British Institution in 1826; repainted and 
exhibited again in 1837 at the Academy. It was followed 
by The Eve of the Deluge at the Academy in 1840, and 
again exhibited at the British Institution in 1841; and 
between these dates it was exhibited at the Paris 
Salon. 

The Assuaging of the Waters was exhibited at the Academy 
the same year as The Deluge, 1840, and Martin wrote and 
published in that year a brochure explaining his con- 
ception of the three pictures. It may be remarked that in 
it he takes all credit for the scheme, and does not mention 





136 John Martin, Painter, 


Prince Albert’s suggestion. Possibly the idea was his own 
and the Prince merely concurred in it. After a quotation 
from Genesis, he says: 

“In attempting to represent this great epoch of the 
world, I have found it impossible to express my conception 
of the subject in one single design; I have, therefore, in 
order more fully to work out my ideas, given three scenes, 
illustrating different periods of the event. ‘ The Eve of 
the Deluge’; ‘ The Deluge’ itself, and the ‘ Assuaging of 
the Waters after the Deluge.’ ”’ 

There follows: ‘‘I have endeavoured to portray my 
imaginings of the Antediluvian World, and to represent the 
near conjunction of the Sun, Moon, and a Comet, as one of 
the warning signs of the approaching doom. 


*“ The many signs and portents have proclaim’d 
A change at hand, and an o’erwhelming doom 
To perishable beings.’ ’”’ 


He proceeds to describe his own picture, The Eve of the 
Deluge, quoting extracts from Ouranoulogos, a prose work 
by “‘ my friend, Mr. Galt,’’ with some blank verse whose 
author he does not name, and concludes: 

“Upon a rock in the foreground are some Patriarchs 
and the family of Noah, anxiously gathered round Methuse- 
lah, who is supposed to have directed the opening of the 
Scroll of his father, Enoch, whilst agitated groups of figures, 
and one of the ‘ Giants cf those days,’ are hurrying to the 
spot where Noah displays the scroll; and Methuselah, 
having compared the portentous signs in the Heavens 
with those represented on the scroll, at once perceives the 





His Life and Times 137 


fulfilment of the prophecy—that the end is come, and 
resigns his soul to God. 
“ The scroll of Enoch prophesied it long 


In silent books, which, in their silence say 
More to the mind than thunder to the ear.”’ 


He gives a list of authorities for his conception below : 
The Book of Enoch, preserved by the Ethiopians ; Hebrews 
xi. 5, Jude xiv. 15; Adam Clark and Josephus’ Antiquities, 
bk. i., chap. i. 

For The Deluge he begins again by quoting Genesis, and 
goes on to describe his conception of 

‘The time when the valleys are supposed to be com- 
pletely overflowed ; and the people are vainly flying to the 
mountains for safety, whilst others are seen crowding upon 


‘ The rocky foreground—where await 
Man, beast and bird their fearful doom.’ 


In the distance is the Ark illumined amidst the general 
_ gloom by the last beams of the sun and protected by the 
Omnipotent from the fury of the elements raging both above 
and below ; the only part of the great waters which remains 
undisturbed, indicated by the horizontal line, being at the 
base of the rock which sustains the Ark. To the right are 
the mountains bursting—or the fountains of the deep 
breaking open—the waters enclosing hills and plains in the 
vast waves, while horsemen and others plunge, in wild 
despair, from the rocks into the foaming deep.”’ 

More quoted poetry, and then he goes on: 

“To the left falling mountains, accompanied by vivid 
lightnings and foaming torrents, threaten instantaneous 








138 John Martin, Painter, 


annihilation to the myriads of men and animals collected 
below in a vain attempt to escape from the rising of the 
waters ; nearer is an immense cavern into which the multi- 
tudes are flying in their hopeless search for safety from the 
falling mountains ; but they are forced back by those who 
have already sought shelter in the interior, and are rushing 
forth again to escape destruction from the subterranean 
waters newly breaking forth.” 

He concludes with a long extract from “‘ Byron’s sublime 
poem ’’ and the whole of a doggerel poem by Bernard Barton, 
entitled “‘ Recollection of Martin’s Deluge.”’ 

Of The Assuaging of the Waters (said by the Observer to 
be ‘“‘ perhaps the most beautiful of all his productions’’) he 
writes : 

“In this picture I have chosen that period after the 
Deluge, when I suppose the sun to have first burst forth 
over the broad expanse of waters gently rippled by the 
breeze, which is blowing the storm clouds seaward ; in the 
distance . . . is the Ark in the full flood of sunlight. The 
direction of the land is indicated by the tops of mountains 
which are beginning to appear. ... A serpent, the first 
tempter to sin, and therefore the original cause of the Deluge, 
is circled, drowned, round the branch upon which is the 
raven sent by Noah... .” 

The last page is a delicate outline etching of the Deluge. 

I have quoted freely from this pamphlet in order to 
show how vast were John Martin’s conceptions, how very 
seriously he took his art, and how anxious he was that 
nothing he saw himself, by the power of his own imagina- 
tion, should be missed by the public. To each of the 





His Life and Times 139 





three pictures he appended an explanatory tag, and, 
indeed, few of his subject-pictures seem to be without 
one. 

A lady whose mother lived next door to John Martin 
in Chelsea (whither he removed about 1848), informs me 
that the Prince Consort was a constant visitor to Martin’s 
studio, and that her mother remembered seeing the painter 
come out in his dressing-gown to speak to the Prince, who 
was on horseback. But royal appreciation did not always 
fall to Martin’s lot, as we shall see, and Leopold gives us 
a characteristic experience with William IV. in his 
reminiscences. 

‘Earl Grey, when Premier,”’ he says, ‘‘ once induced 
William IV. to show him (John Martin) some slight favour 
by desiring him to forward to Buckingham Palace the 
painting of The Fall of Nineveh for his Majesty’s inspection, 
at the same time commanding him on a certain day to 
explain its various points of interest. . . . The picture was 
duly forwarded to the Palace and was placed in a good 
light. As commanded, my father attended. His Majesty 
made his appearance, shook hands, glanced at the picture 
and remarked that it was ‘very pretty.’ What a criticism ! 
His Majesty again shook hands and, saying no more, passed 
on. So ended the interview and with it my father’s hopes 
and expectations.” 

Poor painter! One can see him in the royal presence 
buoyed with hope and confidence, ready to pour forth 
all his descriptive eloquence about ‘‘ the smouldering 
appearance of the advancing conflagration, the crashing 
walls, the lightning flash, the groups, the brilliant 





140 John Martin, Painter, 

assemblage, the doomed and devoted beauty,”’ as Leopold 
puts it, only to be crushed flat under the leaden-weight of 
those two words—“ very pretty ! ” 

But Leopold tells us proudly that, shortly after this 
interview, The Fall of Nineveh was sent to the Salon at 
Brussels by command of King Leopold I. 

‘“ But with how different a result! At the close of the 
exhibition at Brussels my father received a communication 
from M. Van de Weet to the effect that he was commanded 
to express the very great regret of his Belgian Majesty that 
the picture of The Fall of Nineveh would be returned to 
this country, the King having hoped that it might be 
retained for the National Collection in Brussels. Unfor- 
tunately, by the law of Belgium, no money could be granted 
for the purchase of paintings by living painters other than 
those of native artists. 

“In conveying his Majesty’s deep regret, the Minister 
had also instructions to invest Martin with knighthood of 
the Order of Leopold; likewise to present him with his 
Majesty’s portrait or bust by the distinguished court 
sculptor, M. Greff; also with the gold medal of the Salon, 
as well as the diploma constituting him a member of the 
Academies of Brussels and Antwerp. The Order of Leopold 
being a military decoration, it became necessary to obtain 
permission from the English Government to receive it. 
This sanction was at once obtained through my father’s 
friend, Sir William Woods, Garter King-at-Arms at Herald’s 
College, or College of Arms, though, unfortunately, 
not without the usual fees, which were anything but 
slight.” 





KING OF THE BELGIANS. 


9) 


TPEOrOLDer 


p. 140. 


a 





His Life and Times I4I 


Barren honours for our painter, with something to pay 
which he could, doubtless, ill afford. He was allowed no 
title with his knighthood ; only the right to use the letters 
K.L. after his name; and who knew what K.L. meant ? 
It may be noted that King Leopold incurred no personal 
expense on Martin’s account. Blandishments are cheap. 
He might have bought the picture. But we may be sure 
that John was pleased and proud at heart, none the less, 
when he received the Minister’s letter. We may be 
reasonably sure, too, that his keen sense of humour was 
stirred. 

It was, perhaps, the first of the honours he received from 
foreign potentates. We hear of several more medals ; from 
Nicholas I. of Russia, from Louis Philippe of France, from 
Frederick William of Prussia, who sent him also gold snuff- 
boxes and other gifts. Louis Philippe gave him a mag- 
nificent present of Sévres porcelain, and the ex-King of 
Sardinia (Joseph Bonaparte) sent him a pair of very 
beautiful altar candlesticks, designed by Cellini, and given 
to Joseph by his brother, the great Napoleon. We may 
hope they were not loot! 

The ex-King of Sardinia stayed for some time in London, 
incognito, under the title of Count Sarvilia, and Leopold 
tells us how he called at John Martin’s studio, ‘‘ accompanied 
by his interesting and charming daughter,” to view The 
Fall of Nineveh, “‘ for which he expressed special admiration 
and satisfaction.’”’ He invited the artist to dine with him 
at his house in Park Crescent, Regent’s Park, and gave him, 
with a complimentary autograph letter, an engraved 
portrait of himself in his coronation robes. According to 





142 John Martin, Painter, 


our memoirist, Joseph Bonaparte was of middle size, 
handsome, but with more of the Orleans cast of face than 
of the Bonaparte. As engraved he might well have been 
taken for an Orleans prince. 

It was when Martin was engaged upon this same picture 
(Nineveh) that he received a call from another royal per- 
sonage and two celebrities of the day. Prince Louis 
Napoleon (afterwards Emperor of France), the Countess 
of Blessington, and Count D’Orsay. The Prince, says 
Leopold, lived then in quiet apartments at 58, Charlotte 
Street, Portland Place, and Lady Blessington at Gore 
House, Kensington, ‘‘in the garden of which Count D’Orsay 
occupied a small adjoining residence.’”’ These distinguished 
visitors, of course, expressed great delight with the paintings 
displayed to them, and John Martin was naively pleased 
and proud to have had two of the famous Bonapartes visit 
him on two different days. Leopold describes the two 
Frenchmen and the lady with glib felicity : 

‘The Count was at this time a fine-looking man, broad- 
chested, with a great display of blue tie and double-breasted 
white waistcoat. He wore light trousers with gilt chains, 
instead of straps, and the smallest of patent leather boots. 
His wristbands were turned over the cuffs of his coat. He 
had large whiskers, but no moustache or imperial to disguise 
his beautifully-turned, feminine mouth and chin. The 
Prince, a middle-sized, broad-shouldered, hard-looking man, 
was dressed in the plainest manner, with double-breasted 
black frock-coat, buttoned quite up, and light trousers. 
He was remarkable for a heavy moustache, drawn either 
with gum or wax into needle-points, also a wonderfully 





His Life and Times 143 


heavy imperial, but he had no whiskers. His cheeks were 
quite clean shaven. The costume of the Countess was 
remarkable for a quantity of white lace, chiefly about the 
face and brow. She was still beautiful, with a splendid 
figure. On leaving, the Prince, when shaking hands, she 
said, ‘I hope to see you with the Legion of Honour and as 
a Member of the Institute of France.’ My father should 
have lived a few more years.” 

Leopold is much impressed by the fact that Lady 
Blessington actually ventures, before the gentlemen present, 
to draw aside a curtain veiling a copy of Titian’s Venus 
“quite naked ’’! Her ladyship did not even ask per- 
mission, he observes, ‘‘ but at once called the attention both 
of the Prince and the Count to its wonderful perfection. 
This was done with every delicacy, showing a perfect ap- 
preciation of high art.” The picture was, he is eager to 
assure us, at all times covered by a curtain ! 

The Fall of Nineveh seems to have attracted considerable 
attention and to have fluttered the critics. In The Mirror 
for May 17, 1828, we find under the ‘Fine Arts Column’ a 
long eulogy, beginning with the usual flourish. 

‘Of Mr. Martin’s well-earned fame as a painter it is 
unnecessary for us here to speak, since his efforts have 
proved him one ofthe first, if not the most, imaginative artists 
of his time. Indeed, the subjects which he has chosen for 
the display of his talent would deter all but a first-rate 
genius from an attempt at their embodiment.’’ Thereupon 
follows the usual description—that description which 
Martin so loved to give—and concludes: “ Mr. Martin has 
produced a picture of extraordinary merit, and perhaps as 





144 John Martin, Painter, 


frightful a scene as it is possible for any artist to embody. 
On one side is a sublime representation of lightning, while 
on the other the moon rides in sullen majesty, half eclipsed 
by dense clouds, and, at the back, the flames of the distant 
city rise in terrible splendour and throw a lurid tinge over 
the harbour and shipping beneath the walls.” ! 

Very amusing are these old Victorian critiques of art 
in their strong contrast to the shibboleths of our own day. 
After such criticism, the ‘very pretty’ of King William 
must indeed have been a shock to the painter. It was said 
by a writer in the Literary Magnet of May, 1829, that 
Nineveh was to have been succeeded by The Death of 
Sardanapalus, a picture eighteen feet wide and fourteen 
feet high, containing about a million figures, some of them 
no more than dots. But Martin evidently thought better 
of this. We can, however, well imagine his execution 
of it. 

The years following his exhibition of The Deluge in 1837 
nust have been very full and busy ones for Martin. In 
1838 he sent The Death of Moses to the Academy, with the 
usual tag : 

‘“Moses having ascended Mount Nebo, to the top of 
Pisgah, beholds the Promised Land. The view compre- 
hends the camp of the Israelites, the Dead Sea, the City of 
Zeboim, the Brook Cedron, Bethlehem, the City of Palms, 
or Jericho, Bethphage, the Mount of Olives, Valley of 
Jehosophat, Mount of Zion. The full light of the setting 


1 One of the largest of Martin’s pictures, 84 ins. by 134 ins., and 
considered by some critics the most wonderful in its detail. 





His Life and Times 145 


sun falls directly on the birthplace of the Saviour and the 
site of the Holy City, Mount Moriah. Calvary is faintly 
indicated beyond; the great west sea, or Mediterranean, 
forms the extreme distance.”’ 

A somewhat ambitious geographical effort for one who 
had never left the shores of his native land, so far as we 
know! Many an English soldier to-day knows more of the 
regions his imagination roamed in than John Martin could 
have done. 

In the same year The Death of Jacob was hung at the 
Academy, and in 1839 The Last Man, suggested by some 
lines of the poet Campbell, “‘ All worldly shapes shall melt 
in gloom,” etc., beside five landscapes. 

Before 1837 it should have been stated, Lezla (from The 
Giaour) and Alpheus and Arethusa were exhibited at the 
British Institution, with a couple of landscapes. In 1841 
The Eve of the Deluge appeared there, a year after its ex- 
hibition at the Academy, and in 1842 The Curfew Time, 
with a line from Gray’s Elegy. These were followed by 
The Hermit (1843); Christ Stilleth the Tempest (1844) ; 
Morning in Paradise and Evening in Paradise (1845) ; 
The Forest of Arden, an original design for a large picture of 
Moses viewing the Promised Land from Mount Nebo, and 
Arthur and Oegte in the Happy Valley (1851). And, as 
we have seen, his Joshua was also exhibited there in 
1849. 

In the Academy, during those years, he was even more 
voluminously represented. We find there The Celestial 
City and River of Bliss from Paradise Lost (1841); Pan- 


demonium (from the same inspiration); The Flight into 
K 





146 John Martin, Painter, 


Egypt (1842); Canute the Great Rebuking his Courtiers 
(1843); The Judgment of Adam and Eve and The Fall of 
Man (1844); The Last Man (1850); The Destruction of 
Sodom and Gomorrah (1852); and no less than forty-seven 
landscapes. 

Two of his pictures, Christ Stilleth the Tempest and The 
Eve of the Deluge, were exhibited both at the Royal Academy 
and the British Institution, and The Last Man was shown 
at the Academy in 1839 and 1850. They may not, however, 
have been the same picture, as they bear different quota- 
tions, the first being, ‘‘ All worldly shapes shall melt in 
gloom,’’ while the second runs : 

““T saw the last of human mould 
That shall creation’s death behold, 
As Adam saw her prime.”’ 
Both derived from the poet Campbell. 

We have taken Martin now up to his sixty-third year, 
so far as the exhibition of his principal pictures at the 
Academy and British Institution are concerned. There 
were many others, of which we find note here and there at 
different galleries in England, the most important being 
The Destruction of Pharaoh's Host, The Crucifixion (for the 
plate of which we are told he afterwards received from 
Collins a thousand guineas), and The Coronation of Queen 
Victoria, which was exhibited at Buckingham Palace and 
bought by Mr. Scarisbrick, with Nineveh and The Deluge, 
for two thousand guineas. Martin confidently expected 
that the Coronation would earn for him a title he coveted, 
that of Historical Painter to the Queen of England, but he 
was not so honoured by the Crown, and the refusal to the 


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His Life and Times 147 


request, made for him by Lord Grey, nearly broke his heart. 
We have a pathetic picture of him at the time (1838) from 
the pen of Mr. Thomas, when Martin was almost distraught 
with debt and anxiety, causing his wife and children great 
anxiety. But of this more hereafter. His financial losses, 
due to a too generous and confiding faith in his fellow-men, 
and sometimes to over-confidence in his own powers, must 
be left, with his three last pictures, for a later chapter. 





148 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER IX 


Martin becomes an engraver. His substantial printing establish- 
ment at Allsop Terrace. Two thousand guineas for twelve 
illustrations to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Accounts with print- 
sellers in London and other large cities. Sales in the United 
States, China and Japan. Illustrations to the Bible and Pil- 
grim’s Progress. Isabella Martin, her Father’s secretary. 
Anecdote of Wilkie. 


THE number of pictures painted by John Martin in those 
middle years of his life seems to us the more amazing when 
we come to consider his achievements as an engraver. 
That he was not the only painter who engraved his own 
work we know. J. M. W. Turner studied the process of 
mezzotint, etched the leading themes of his Liber Studiorum 
on the plate and supervised the engravings, sometimes even 
working upon them himself. But Martin actually became 
an engraver; not only graving on the copper and steel 
plates, but setting up a press and producing the pictures 
from his own workshop. In his letter to the Illustrated 
London News, already quoted (1849), he says, speaking of 
his work on and after 1821 : 

“Most important of all was my acquiring the art of 
engraving and producing the ‘Illustrations of Milton,’ 
designed on the plates (and for which I received 2,000 
guineas) ; The ‘ Belshazzar’s Feast ’—the first large steel plate 


‘SPL a 


SELEY AW eSlbeiG] AV UsLVaaS HBL 





oa 


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His Life and Times 149 
ever engraved in mezzotint, the ‘ Joshua’ and the ‘ Deluge,’ 
between the years 1823 and 1828.” 

Further on he states that, after devoting a certain 
portion of his life to engraving, he was compelled to abandon 
it, owing to the imperfect laws of copyright. 

“My property being so constantly and variously in- 
fringed that it became ruinous to contend with those who 
robbed me, I was therefore driven from the market by 
inferior copies of my own works, to the manifest injury of 
my credit and pecuniary resources.” 

Judging from an infamous print I have of The Day of 
His Wrath (one of the famed ‘ Judgment’ pictures, without 
any imprint of engraver’s or printer’s name), he must 
indeed have had cause for bitter complaint. 

He does not tell us how he acquired the art of engraving, 
but he must have studied it in the years 1821-3, and probably 
his first production, Belshazzar’s Feast, engraved on copper, 
was a pretty rough piece of work. But its success was so 
great that he determined upon engraving his other large 
| pictures, and, being dissatisfied with the slowness of printers, 
decided to set up a press of his own. Of this we have 
some interesting matter from Leopold. 

‘“ Notwithstanding,” he says, ‘‘ the amount of practical 
skill and knowledge gained by my father in the production, 
or engraving in mezzotint, first on copper and then 
on steel, of the plate of Belshazzar’s Feast, it quite failed 
to impress him with any desire to become an engraver, 
and it was accident alone that made him one by 
compulsion. . . 

“ Such had been the popularity of his painting of Joshua 





150 John Martin, Painter, 

Commanding the Sun to Stand Still that, following the 
advice of his many friends, he decided on the publication 
of a large engraving. Of little moment as such a decision 
may seem, it really marked an important era in my father’s 
art career. His original idea was not, as in the case of 
Belshazzar’s Feast, to execute the work himself, but to 
procure the services of some well-known engraver. The 
commission consequently was given to Charles Turner, 
distinguished for his engravings from the work of his great 
namesake, J. M. W. Turner, and others. The contemplated 
engraving was to be in mezzotint ; the plate of a size not 
less than thirty by twenty-two inches, and the cost was 
not to exceed £500. Such an arrangement was expected 
to result in a work of importance. This, at any rate, was 
the feeling of my father and his advisers. 

“But Charles Turner, though so distinguished in his 
art, quite failed to enter into the feeling of the poetry of 
the painting. He seemed to have no heart in the work. 
Month after month passed, payment after payment was 
made in advance, but with little or no result. Deeply dis- 
appointed that one so distinguished should fail in really 
good work, my father felt compelled to call to his assistance 
the co-operation of an old and mutual friend, Mr. William 
Brochendon, who undertook to negotiate with Mr. Turner. 
The result was the utter destruction of the plate, and all 
the work, as it then stood, was cancelled. Such instalments 
of money already advanced went as payment for work 
executed and stood as the loss of my father. 

‘The one way out of the difficulty, the only one in my 
father’s eyes, was for himself to make up for lost time and 





His Life and Times I5I 


attempt a new engraving on steel. On so deciding, he had 
kind aid from his friend Mr. Thomas Lupton, who offered 
every mechanical assistance in his power. A large steel 
plate was procured from Harris & Co., the mezzotint 
ground was laid, the etching or outline was made, and, in 
the course of four months, my father completed what 
proved to be, perhaps, one of his most successful engrav- 
ings. Thus by compulsion he became an engraver, for 
he could meet with none who fell into the spirit of his 
painting.” 

Allowing for a certain colour, which we must always 
allow the garrulous and effusive Leopold, there is doubtless 
truth in this narrative, and it certainly gives a plausible 
reason for John Martin’s plunge into the engraver’s art. 
Charles Turner obviously did not care for Martin’s subjects, 
and perhaps cared less for his method of painting them. 
The sum of £500 may have tempted him to undertake work 
that he found it distasteful to accomplish. It is no new 
story. 

In mezzotint, we are told, unlike line engraving, the 
plate has first a series of chalk lines drawn upon it, about 
three-quarters of an inch apart. Between these lines a 
tool called a ‘cradle’ is employed, rocked over the surface 
till it presents the appearance of a file. Then new parallel 
chalk lines are drawn across the plate, and a similar series 
of lines worked across, cutting the former ones at right 
angles. After that the plate is worked again in the same 
way, from corner to corner, at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
The operation is repeated in graduated angles from sixty 
to a hundred times until the entire surface of the plate is 





152 John Martin, Painter, 


reduced to a ‘burr’ of infinitesimal size, which gives an 
impression on paper of a rich, velvety black. 

When the plate is thus prepared the subject is wrought 
on it by scraping away the ‘bur’ in the lighter tones with 
a tool known as a scraper, and, in the high lights, polishing 
it quite smooth with a ‘burnisher.’ Its special quality is, 
we are told, to give richness and delicate gradations of tone 
to the values of a picture, and the engraver is able to 
work on it in much the same way as a painter on his picture.} 
This fact would naturally appeal to Martin, and as he 
evidently enjoyed going over his best-loved pictures several 
times, we may imagine that he found much pleasure in 
engraving them. 

Leopold has told us that his father built “‘ a substantial 
private printing establishment and convenient painting- 
room with an outlet into a back lane”’ on to his house in 
Allsop’s Terrace, attached by a long gallery supported by 
iron pillars; and this must have been some time in 1822 
or 1823. It was not, says Leopold, “till the formation 
of a regular printing establishment under his immediate 
supervision that my father became fully aware of the 
importance and really great art required to understand 
fully the quality of various inks and to obtain a perfect 
knowledge how to work them, as well as how to use thick 
and thin oils. Workmen of the present day are little 
aware of the great debt due to John Martin for the present 
perfection in the art of printing, and for mezzotint engraved 
plates. The printing room under my father’s studio was 


1 Arthur Hayden, Chats on Old Prints. 








His Life and Times 153 





as nearly perfect as art could make it. He had fly-wheels 
and screw presses of the latest construction; ink grinders, 
glass and iron ; closets for paper ; French, India and English 
drawers for canvas blankets, inks, whiting, leather, shavings, 
etc. ; out-door cupboards for charcoal and ashes—in fact, 
every appliance necessary for what my father was con- 
verting into a fine art. For with him the working of the 
various inks was really a high art, besides effecting a great 
saving of labour and valuable time to the engraver.” 

“ At the outset he would pull a plain proof of the plate, 
using ordinary ink; then work or mix the various inks. 
First, he made a stiff mixture in ink and oil; secondly, one 
with oil and less ink; and, thirdly, a thin mixture both of 
ink and oil. Lastly, he worked up various degrees of whiting 
and oil, with the slightest dash of burnt umber, just to 
give a warm tint to the cold white. In working, or inking, 
the plate the thick ink (No. 1) went to the darkest tints, 
No. 2 to the medium ones, No. 3 to the lighter shades; the 
inks consisting chiefly of whiting being the most difficult 
to work and the most artistic. Separate dabbers were 
required for each description of ink. The greatest attention 
was needed in the use of the canvas when wiping off, so as 
to blend or harmonise the various inks, especially those 
of whiting. The blending or harmonising was really a task 
of great skill, to be acquired only by instruction from the 
engraver. Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Sill, 
Belshazzar’s Feast, and The Deluge were all engraved by the 
hand of John Martin.”’ 

Those who happen to possess these prints may be 
interested to know that they were engraved by the painter 





154 John Martin, Painter, 


himself, a fact which should give them a peculiar value as 
curiosities in art some day, if not to-day. Leopold goes on 
to tell us something of his father’s workmen : 

“He found it a great difficulty to get time for the 
artistic supervision and necessary instruction of workmen. 
All the chief houses had been called into requisition— 
Chalfred and Dawes, Lahee, McQueen and S. H. Hawkins 
—but hardly any could, or would, supply hands. Formerly 
the masters themselves performed such work for my father. 
Mr. Hawkins would never permit anyone else to attempt 
it; he worked off every impression. Few copies, however, 
could be worked off a plate in one day—not more than 
eight or ten perfect impressions. Hence the great diffi- 
culty in obtaining really good hands. The work did not 
pay if taken by the piece; only by the week. Indeed, of 
such importance did the workmen look upon it, that one 
really good hand in the employ of Mr. Lahee, named Wood, 
who got but 30s. a week, demanded as much as £5 from 
my father. A really clever man is worth nearly any amount 
of pay. He can make himself a necessity to the mezzotint 
engraver, not only by his skill in printing, but by doing the 
work so as to preserve the plate as much as possible—a very 
important matter when so few really fine impressions can 
be obtained, especially from copper plates. My father 
only uses steel. The Fall of Nineveh was the largest steel 
plate produced up to the date of its publication. A special 
paper had to be manufactured for it.’’ 

We may take a few grains of salt with all this, but it 
is nevertheless interesting as showing something of the 
growing defiance of skilled labour nearly a hundred years ago. 





His Life and Times 155 


Leopold Martin claims that his father was not only an 
experimenter in the art of engraving, but that the art was 
indebted to him for certain improvements. Writing of 
“the glorious blaze of light ”’ in prints of Belshazzar’s Feast, 
he declares that it was chiefly the effect of the combination 
of certain materials in the ink he used, and the result of his 
own experiments. Burnt oil, a quantity of whiting, and 
little Frankfort black, ground well together, were the 
ingredients, or chief ingredients, according to Leopold, 
who appears to have learnt something of engraving and 
printing from his father. 

We may certainly believe him when he informs us 
that the illustrations of Milton were the first series of 
engravings executed by John Martin, and here we enter 
upon another phase of this extraordinary man’s life. He 
became an illustrator, and a famous one. An engraving 
of his Marcus Curtius, made by the celebrated Henry Le 
Quex for the Annual, Forget-me-not, was so fine and so much 
appreciated that we are told the proofs sold for more than 
the annual itself, and the public demand was so great that 
I0,000 copies were sold separately. Mr. Ackermann sent 
one of the last impressions to Martin, in order that he 
might see what a first-class engraving could be; from 
which we may assume that John was then trying his hand 
with the graver’s tools. The Milton illustrations were 
chiefly designed by him on the plates, and very impressive 
they are. The edition de luxe I have seen (very large—I 
should say imperial quarto) gives one an exalted idea of 
Martin’s genius, and, indeed, his Milton pictures are said 
to show him at his very best, 


156 John Martin, Painter, 


His engravings altogether did not lie open to the gibes 
of captious critics who objected to his colours. True, the 
critics fell foul of his figures as well, but in a small picture 
the lack of dignity, of which they complained, was far less 
conspicuous. 

It is a matter for regret that no enterprising publisher 
of his day commissioned a set of plates for Dante’s Inferno, 
which would have been a subject after Martin’s own heart, 
and one that he could, surely, have illustrated as no other 
artist ever could. 

The order for his Milton illustrations came from an 
- American publisher in London (Bond Street) named William 
Prowitt, according to Leopold. They were twelve in number 
and he received for them, as Martin tells us himself, the 
sum of two thousand guineas. Leopold says that he had 
fifteen hundred guineas more for a set of duplicate plates 
of a smaller size. 

He also informs us that the sale of his father’s engravings 
were even greater in the United States, China, and Japan 
than in his own country. ‘‘ Outside London, Manchester 
and Liverpool were the chief markets,”’ he observes, “‘ but ° 
more copies may be found in the folios of collectors in New 
York, Boston, and Washington. In China and Japan they 
may be seen in all houses of men of rank and education. 
The plates have often been retouched and re-engraved, 
but not by my father. The originals are therefore valuable, 
the rest are worth little more than the paper on which they 
are printed—at least in the eyes of collectors or 
connoisseurs.”’ 

His Milton illustrations were succeeded by a set of 


His Life and Times 157 


plates for the Bible, also designed on the plates, a com- 
mission from Ackermann, the dealer, who had first ground 
him down when he was almost starving. He did not 
recognise Martin as the poor youth who had sold him 
a number of drawings for a guinea or so, and John 
was too proud to tell him. The artist must have 
chuckled over the large sums paid him by Ackermann in 
royalties on these and other engraved pictures. But they 
were not the first sold to Ackermann since that first sordid 
transaction of his boyhood ; for we read in the Reminiscences 
that “Mr. Ackermann reminded my father that he might 
claim the honour of being his first publisher—the one to 
publish in the year 1816 a series of etchings on copper, 
illustrations of English forest trees.’ We can imagine the 
conversation; the bland dealer rubbing his hand and 
fawning upon John, who would gravely listen, with a 
twinkle in his humorous eyes, and make no comment to this 
effusion. 

Apropos of engraving, Leopold tells us an anecdote 
about Sir David Wilkie which may be new. He had, says 
the writer, a very strong aversion from seeing any of his 
work reproduced in wood engraving, in spite of his high 
opinion of the great engravers of his day, Bewick, Thomson, 
Williams, and others; and could never be induced either 
to draw on the block himself or let anyone else do his 
pictures. 

Allan Cunningham, however, his great friend, managed 
to persuade him to promise a frontispiece for his poem, 
Lhe Maid of Elvar. Cunningham was delighted, knowing 





158 John Martin, Painter, 


the value of such an illustration, and provided the artist 
with a well-prepared block, the proper pencils, and other 
necessary materials for a wood engraving. 

Days passed, weeks rolled into months, but no drawing 
came to hand. Cunningham pleaded, Sir David protested 
he had no time. At last, however, the block was sent. 
But on it was—not a pencil drawing, such as John Thomson 
could cut, but a highly-finished painting in oil-colour of a 
Highlander with his pipes! 

The picture was, nevertheless, eventually engraved on 
steel by one of the Findons, and formed the title-page to 
The Maid of Elvar. 

Martin supplied a good many such small pictures. 
Beside his illustrations of Milton and the Bible there is an 
edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress, published in 1830 by John 
Murray, Albermarle Street, and John Major, Fleet Street, 
which has two copper-plate pictures by him as frontispieces 
to Parts I. and II., The Valley of the Shadow of Death and 
The Celestial City—both engraved by W.R.Smith. Southey 
contributed a Life of Bunyan to this edition, which is 
somewhat rare. f 

I have been fortunate in obtaining the loan of a most 
interesting account-book belonging to John Martin through 
the kindness of Mr. Hardcastle, of Newcastle, who acquired 
it at a sale some years ago. It contains the painter’s 
royalty accounts with leading print-sellers in London and 
elsewhere during the years 1828-41, and was kept by his 
eldest daughter, Isabella Mary, with masterly precision. 
Her beautiful clear handwriting would be like copperplate 





His Life and Times 159 


were it not for a definite character of its own that shows 
the woman she was. John Martin, we know, leaned upon 
her all his life, found in her not only a devoted daughter, 
but a perfect secretary and amanuensis. Her many great 
qualities have been illuminated by her family down to this 
generation, and she was, apparently, loved and adored by 
her brothers and sisters. 

We find, from her accounts with Ackermann (Strand), 
Moon, Boys & Graves (Pall Mall), Molton (Pall Mall), 
Agnew and Zanetti (Manchester), Grundy and Fox (Man- 
chester), Linnecar (Liverpool), Freeman (Norwich), Lambe 
(Gracechurch Street), and others, that John Martin made 
a considerable sum by his royalties on engravings alone, as 
well by their sales outright. Ackermann paid him (between 
1828 and 1836) £3,000 8s. 84d.; the Moon firm (between 
1826 and 1834), £2,105 19s. 4d. And altogether he seems 
to have been paid £18,430 9s. 44d. during the years in which 
these accounts were rendered. In another part of the 
account-book (which is a strong volume bound in white 
vellum) we find a ‘‘ List of chance subscribers to Mr. Martin’s 
print of Belshazzar, 1826-36,’’ which shows that the sale 
of this one engraving brought him {1,806 8s. 6d. Think of 
the number of these pictures that must have been sold | 
Where are they all now? | 


On one page we find: 

Received by cash for proofs, etc., of Belshazzar and 
Joshua from Nov. 24th, 1826, to November 30th, 1827. 
BREEN 4 de ce aidie CREWE PAY {691 18 oO 





160 John Martin, Painter, 


On another : 
1828 13 as 12 prints Belshazzar 73/6 na 
June 6th. do. Joshua 63/- 37\ 16 40 
Aug. Ist. do. Belshazzar 73/6 fA. Zee 
do. Joshua 63/- 37 Ib 
£163 .t6i0-@ 
25 per cent. 40 19 90 
£122 PF nO 
5 per cent. 6). ieee 
Paid J. M. M. {116 14 2 


Every separate account bears, at its left-hand corner, 
the word and initials, ‘“‘ Paid J. M. M.” 

We learn from this book that an unlettered proof of 
The Deluge cost 210s. (ten guineas), whereas the lettered 
ditto was worth 105s. ; that Belshazzar’s Feast was priced, 
in 1828, at ten shillings more than Joshua, and the prices 
of both went up in 1831-3. The Fall of Nineveh apparently 
remained stationary at five guineas. But, on the whole, 
it seems clear that Martin’s prices improved as time went 
on, up to 1843, when he appears, from the following letter 
(kindly copied for me by Mr. C. B. Stevenson, Curator of 
the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle) to have a supply ex- 
ceeding the demand. 


‘London, 30, Allsop Terrace New Road, 


May 22nd, 1843. 
“Mr. LINNECAR. 


“DEAR SIR, 
“Tt is some years since I heard anything from 
you, or have had occasion to write on business as I have 





JOHN MARTIN. 
From the drawing in chalk by his son, Charles Martin. (Laing Art Gallery.) 
p. 160 


= 
7 








His Life and Times 161 


not been publishing anything new. Last year, however, 
as you may possibly know, a Mr. Gilberts of Sheffield pub- 
lished my latest plate, the ‘Eve of the Deluge,’ from the 
picture in Prince Albert’s collection—but I never heard 
whether it was seen or circulated in Liverpool. If it has 
not fallen under your notice the size and prices are as 
follows: 25} inches by 15% price unlettered proofs—3 gns 
—lettered 2 gns—prints 1 gn. Now of this plate I effected 
a very large exchange with the proprietor with the view 
of exporting largely to America, but I own from the present 
state of the market I am afraid to proceed farther, until 
I have better probability of success, and as I do not wish 
to keep so much dead stock on hand, I am looking about 
me to clear out some of it. If the plate has not been seen 
in Liverpool I should think its small size and low price would 
alone be likely to attract, and if you think so also, and are 
willing to enter upon the speculation, I will offer the most 
liberal terms. My wish is to dispose of a certain number 
out and out and thus get rid of them altogether. The 
number I think to be the smallest I could sell in this way 
would be 25 prints for £12 cash; the impressions are all good 
and on fine paper. I have a few unlettered and lettered 
proofs but this I cannot sell at less than 50 per cent. 

‘“ Whatever may be your views let me know by return 
of post. 

“And in the meantime I remain, Dear Sir, 

“ Yours very truly, 
‘““ (Sgd.) JOHN MarrTIN. 

“Mr. G. Linnecar, 

Liverpool.,”’ 





162 John Martin, Painter, 


It is a business-like letter, and if not composed by 
Isabella (as it probably was), shows the practical side of 
our great painter, that side which will be shown in further 
correspondence of his on a different subject later. 

Whether The Eve of the Deluge was a less popular picture 
than some of his others, or whether a ‘slump’ had occurred 
in his engravings through over-production, when the 
above letter was written, we cannot say. But it is certain 
that between 1826 and 1840 Martin must have made at 
least £21,000 by his engravings alone, including the Milton 
illustrations, and probably a great deal more, if it be true 
that he received £1,500 from the American firm for smaller 
drawings of the Milton pictures. But of this we have no 
positive evidence at present. 





His Life and Times 163 


CHAPTER X 


The Annuals and John Martin’sconnection with them. His amazing 
output of work during the years 1821-8. Friendship of th 
Martins and Tenniels. Marriage of Leopold with John Tenniel’s 
sister. The Pot Luck Club. Martin called a ‘Radical Revolu- 
tionary.’ Story of Hogg and young Mrs. Burns. Martin’s 
walks in the country with Serjeant Thomas. Change of 
address between 1824 and 1828. 

THE year 1822 (or 1823) saw the birth of the Annual in 
England, that elegant compilation of poetry, prose, and 
picture which conquered Victorian society and was the 
parent of our later Christmas annuals. It was not, how- 
ever, intended to cater for the general public, as our modern 
productions are, being rather an appeal to more cultured 
taste and well-filled pockets, for only the affluent could afford 
to indulge in a copy. At first its price was 12s., which 
afterwards rose to a guinea; but as the years went on and 
its popularity increased, the competition of publishers 
forced the price down to half that sum and even less. 

The first Annual, Forget-me-not, published by Ackermann 
(upon a German model), was an ambitious production ; its 
literary contributors were among the best of their day, 
and it must have had a certain quality sadly lacking in 
most of its descendants. 


It reached high-water mark in 1828 when Harrison 





164 John Martin, Painter, 


Ainsworth, with Charles Heath, the engraver, produced 
The Keepsake. This was a most expensive production, 
costing {12,0001 and selling at a guinea. Ainsworth 
himself was represented in it, Sir Walter Scott, and others 
as renowned in their time, if to-day forgotten. But the 
Annual’s deterioration was steady after the thirties, if we 
may judge from the specimens I have recently seen; and 
anyone who wished to study mid-Victorian literature at 
its worst could not do better than dip into some of these 
feeble volumes. 

Here is the table of contents to one, edited by Emmeline 
Stuart Wortley, published in 1837. It is called The Keepsake, 
and contains the following choice morsels : 

Thursday Morning, or the Bachelor’s House, by the 
Lady Dacre. 

I am come but your Spirits to Raise, by Lady E. Stuart 
Wortley. 

Francesca Foscari, by the Countess of Blessington. 

The Sea! TheSea! A Tale, by Lord Nugent. 

Polish National Hymn, by the Lady Charlotte St. Maur. 

The Orphan of Palestine, by Lord William Lennox. 

It will be seen that lords and ladies are ‘plentiful as 
tabby cats’ in its pages, and that its patrician editor did 
not disdain to trade upon their titles for the purpose of 
attracting a snobbish public. It was, of course, the palmy 
day of ‘ladies and gentlemen,’ who were not then to be 
found behind counters or serving machines in workshops; 
and we find in another Annual (Friendship’s Offering, a 
Literary Album and Annual Remembrancer, 1829) that 


1S. M. Ellis, Life of Wiliam Harrison Ainsworth. 


—_ 





His Life and Times 165 


distinctions were sharply drawn. For, side by side with 
Love and Sorrow, by the late Henry Neale, Esq., and Leaving 
Scotland, by W. Kennedy, Esq., stands John Clare, the 
ploughman-poet of Northamptonshire, plain and unadorned 
even by a ‘ mister’ ! 

It is astonishing to read what fudge these persons of 
quality could write, and still more astonishing to think that 
a public could be found to swallow, without nausea, their 
effusions. Perhaps the decent fare offered by the first Annuals 
lured the public to buy without tasting those that came 
after ; but it is only too evident that, as time went on, the 
Annual became a pleasant meadow for the aspiring amateur 
to sport in. Every ambitious scribbler who could afford it 
started to edit an Annual and contribute to its pages any 
old manuscript that the professional press had refused. 
This theory alone can account for Lady E. Stuart Wortley’s 
Keepsake, which, among other gems from her pen, gives 
publicity to doggerel beginning as follows: 


““ How d’ye do—how d’ye do, my dear Jane, 
I have volumes to tell you indeed, 
I’m enchanted to see you again ; 
What a life we young ladies do lead ! 


““ To be sure, since your poor father’s death, 
You’ve been locked up and blocked up at home, 
Like a sword left to rust in its sheath, 
Like a plant left to pine in its gloom.” 


There are twenty-four stanzas of this inspired poesy, 
some better and some worse than the foregoing, but these 
will serve to show the quality of Lady Emmeline’s genius 
and give some idea of the matter provided by the later 





166 John Martin, Painter, 


Annuals, whose aim was, according to one editor, “to 
increase the sources of innocent amusement . . . while 
conveying some fine moral or religious sentiment.” 

They soon began to be adapted to religious aims, with 
temperance, missionary, or other definite objectives, and 
we find among the hosts of titles Forget-me-not, Keepsake, 
Book of Beauty, Book of Gems, Literary Souvenir, Ins, 
Elegant Extracts, and the like. In The Christian Keepsake 
and Missionary Annual the pious editor starts his preface 
thus : 

“The cultivation of taste for the fine arts has ever 
been a source of pleasure and improvement to the virtuous 
and intelligent patrons of society ; and the extent to which 
this taste now prevails has secured for the Annuals, 
which blend with literary excellence embellishments of 
a high order, very general approbation....It has 
been considered that a volume more decidedly religious 
would be peculiarly acceptable toa large portion of 
readers, and, to supply this desideration, The Christian 
Keepsake and Missionary Annual is now offered to the 
public.” 

But even in the religious Annuals it is easy to recognise 
the personal yearning for publication of their reverend 
editors protruding from the ‘ Table of Contents.’ In The 
Iris: a Literary and Religious Offering, of 1831, the Rev. 
Thomas Dale starts off with an unblushing travesty of the 
Ode to the Nativity, and sprinkles his other lucubrations 
plenteously through the volume, obviously resolved to be 
no mute inglorious Milton while it is possible to publish an 
Annual and shine upon its pages ! 





His Life and Times 167 


Curiously enough, in The Keepsake of 1837 we find 
poems over the names of Alfred Tennyson and Edward 
Fitzgerald. But it seems almost impossible that one of 
the greatest of our poets could ever have written lines so 
void of poetry or sense as the following : 

“ The Sabbaths of eternity— 
One Sabbath deep and wide : 
A light upon the shining sea, 
The bridegroom with his bride.’’ 

Long after the verse, stories and essays of the Annuals 
had descended to this fatuous level, their ‘‘ embellishments ”’ 
continued to be of a high order. The accompanying 
pictures are generally good, even in the cheap successors 
to the original Annuals, and we come across, here and there, 
exquisite steel engravings from the hands of such well- 
known men as Le Keux, H. Robinson, J. T. Willmore, 
C. Heath, E. Goodall, etc. 

Martin was among the first, and was often his own 
engraver. So on this account, apart from its interest as a 
souvenir of other times, a Keepsake, a Forget-me-not, an 
Ivis, an Amulet, or any other of these elegant Victorian 
productions may be a valuable possession. 

Leopold Martin gives the story of the Annual’s 
inception. 

‘Tt was in the year 1828, as far as my memory serves,”’ 1 
he writes, ‘‘ that my father’s old friend, Mr. R. Ackermann 
of 96, Strand—the first who opened an art gallery in London, 
and certainly the originator of them in all great towns in 
England 2—also introduced quite a new speculation in 





1 It was in 1822-3. 2 Can this be substantiated ? 


168 John Martin, Painter, 


publishing. It was in the form of an elegant Annual, with 
the title of Forget-me-not, and consisted of a compilation 
of short stories and original poems by authors of high 
standing, together with a series of engravings from the 
hands of the most celebrated line engravers, either from 
original designs, or from well-known pictures by the chief 
artists of the day. The publication of the work proved 
so novel that it formed quite an era in the literary world. 
Such was the success of Mr. Ackermann’s Forget-me-not 
that it was followed by at least ten or twelve of like descrip- 
tion, all under the editorship of distinguished authors, or 
the superintendence of persons equally well known, such 
as Mrs. S. C. Hall, Mr. Thomas Pringle, Mr. E. B. Lytton 
Bulwer, Mr. A. A. Watts and others, including Lady 
Blessington and Mr. Thomas Heath, the distinguished 
engraver.” 

He then tells us about Henry le Keux’s wonderful 
engraving of his father’s sepia drawing of Marcus Curtius 
and further informs us that the same engraver also repro- 
duced his painting of The Crucifixion as an illustration for 
Mrs. Hall’s Amulet, issued the following year ; and that his 
first picture, Sadak, reappeared in a more expensive Annual, 
The Keepsake. 

It has been remarked that John Martin’s work showed 
to great advantage in these little pictures, where “the 
smallness of the scale and the absence of colour enables us 
to appreciate the grandeur of his conceptions without 
being too strongly reminded of his defects’ (Dictionary of 


1 The price of Forget-me-not was 12s., The Keepsake a guinea. 


(..°7S0JT aswpvavg ,, 02 suoyvdisnyy. suysavpr uyof fo aug) 
“ASIGCVAVd WOU GHTIYdxXH AAT AGNV WVdCV 











His Life and Times 169 


National Biography), and Charles Lamb, writing to Bernard 
Barton, the Quaker poet, on receipt of his New Year's Eve 
and Other Poems, to which Martin had engraved the frontis- 
piece, says: “ Martin’s frontispiece is a very fine thing.”’ 
It is not easy to trace how many of these small pictures 
he drew or engraved, but from allusions in the reminiscences 
of Leopold Martin and Ralph Thomas, we may coinclude 
that he was represented, not only in many of the Annuals 
but in frontispieces to books of the day by authors over 
whom the cobwebs have grown. 

Was there anything on earth that John Martin did not 
essay to paint or draw? How he found time to paint his 
great subject-pictures, his scores of landscapes, and to draw 
and engrave illustrations to volumes of poetry and works 
on geology, as well as the Bible, Paradise Lost, and The 
Pilgrim’s Progress in those years of his prime must remain 
a mystery. Surely his days must have been twice as long 
as those of the average man; and when we read a letter 
to him from Joseph Toynbee, offering to call and discuss 
a certain important matter with him at 7 a.m., it is possible 
to realise how little time is wasted by those who have 
devoted their lives to great aims. 

And, besides his art, Martin had other great aims which 
devoured not only his time but the money gained by his 
genius and labour. These have to be dealt with in a later 
chapter, though they were occupying much of his thought 
at this period of his vital and extraordinary activity, when 
he was at the zenith of his fame and money flowed into his 
coffers. The carking shadow of debt that threw its gloom 
over his path a little later on, had not yet begun to haunt 





170 John Martin, Painter, 


him. Like many another artist, John Martin could not 
keep money. Anyone could wheedle it from him, and his 
huge circle of friends assisted him in spending it. Some of 
these friends were as great andas disinterested as Martin 
himself, and it would be pleasant to linger over Leopold’s 
pen-pictures of them. Of Samuel Rogers, ‘‘ whose break- 
fast equipage was a wonder of refinement and perfect- 
ion ; the china being of old Chelsea, Battersea, Derby, or 
Worcester, the silver either Queen Anne or still older 
English.” 

Of John Jackson, R.A., who “ had no particular artist’s 
window but many which were all darkened by thick blinds, 
an advantage to a portrait painter.”’ 

Of Thomas Alcock, the distinguished surgeon of St. 
Thomas’s Hospital, who “‘ had devoted much study to the 
beautiful art of modelling in wax, chiefly that of anatomical 
subjects,’ with a minute description of his process in repro- 
ducing a cast of the face. 

Of Allan Cunningham, whose brother, Peter, married 
Martin’s second daughter, Zenobia; of John Hunt, Luke 
Clennan, Sir Charles Wheatstone, William Etty, “a short, 
thick-set, slip-shod, slovenly person, strongly marked with 
small-pox, whose conversation was generally confined to 
the one subject of art, which made him, to artists only, a 
charming companion,” and many others, too many by half 
to set down, here. | 

It is only necessary to mention that Leopold married 
the sister of one of these famous personages—Sir John 
Tenniel. The Martins and Tenniels were early friends, and 
the children of both families played together. We have 





His Life and Times I7I 


Leopold’s word for it that John Tenniel received his first 
commission through John Martin, who introduced him to 
John Murray, the publisher. It was for a hundred illustra- 
tions to Zisop’s Fables. The following paragraph may be 
of interest : 

‘ Few who are in the habit of seeing Mr. John Tenniel’s 
well-dressed and well-mounted figure in the Row in Hyde 
Park can be aware that the moustachioed, whiskered, and 
ruddy-complexioned, handsome face, really bears an un- 
observable blemish, if it may be so called, for it is really 
‘unobservable.’ It was the result of a melancholy and 
truly unfortunate accident. While at practice, when quite 
young, with his father, an accomplished small swordsman, 
the button unhappily came off the point of the father’s foil 
and, both being without masks, touched the eye of John 
Tenniel. The father never knew what frightful injury the 
touch had done. The secret was religiously kept by the 
son and everyone else; yet the stricken eye was blinded 
for ever! Who would think that the mass of beautiful 
and artistic work produced by John Tenniel resulted from 
a single eye?” 

It was a circle of light that John Martin moved in then, 
the light cast by a galaxy of starry names. Other bio- 
graphies have shown their splendour. John Forster in his 
Life of Charles Dickens, S. M. Ellis in his Life of Harrison 
Ainsworth, Lewis Melville, in his Life of Thackeray, etc., 
and the only strange thing is that, in these exhaustive 
memoirs the name of Martin does not appear. We read of 
Cruikshank, of Macrone, of Maclise, of Leech, of Landseer, 
of Wilkie and dozens more, but not a word of Martin! It 





172 John Martin, Painter, 


would almost seem like a conspiracy of silence. For Martin 
was friendly with all these men, and most of them met at 
his weekly, gatherings. 

It is possible that the literary and art clubs, now so 
numerous in London, originated, as Leopold Martin suggests, 
from the Evenings at Home held in John Martin’s house. 
Before the Athenzeum Club was started in 1824 no meeting- 
place existed for the association of men known in literature, 
science and art, except in private houses. The few clubs, 
such as the Army, Navy, or United Services were each 
confined to a particular class, and were not only exclusive 
but expensive. The little coteries formed at the Mermaid 
in the sixteenth century and Button’s Coffee House in 
Addison’s day can hardly be accounted clubs, although the 
idea doubtless originated in Shakespeare’s time and the 
word ‘club’ was used as we use the word ‘bill’ now. 
“After paying my club,’’ Pepys writes in 1660, when he 
leaves the Mitre or other tavern. It is amusing to read 
what our garrulous Leopold has to say about the first 
literary club in Victorian London : 

“Feeling the want (of a club) a very serious one, Mr. 
William Jerdan, editor of the Literary Gazette, combined 
with Mr. Andrews, the well-known bookseller and publisher 
of Bond Street, Mr. Alaric A. Watts, Mr. John Britton (‘little 
Britton ’), the distinguished archeologist and author, Mr. 
Murphy, father of Mrs. Jameson, so well known by her 
works on painting, and some others, to get one. In the 
first instance, they proposed the formation of a friendly 
association to be termed ‘ the Pot Luck Club,’ the members 
to meet once a week at each other’s houses and partake 





His Life and Times 173 


of whatever plain repast accident might have placed on 
the table—pot luck, in short. It was the feeling that such 
meetings would be, at least, genial, friendly, and pleasant, 
and likely to be popular. 

“It fell to the lot of Mr. William Jerdan to hold the 
first ‘pot-luck’ meeting. The abode of Mr. Jerdan was 
an important one—Grove House, Brompton. He himself 
was a bon vivant, and the dinner, though perhaps in his 
usual style, was luxurious and costly, not like the ‘ pot- 
luck’ of most of the members of the club. The following 
meeting fell to the lot of Mr. Andrews, a regular ‘ dinner- 
giver,’ and he made his even more vecherché than Mr. Jerdan’s. 
The wines were of the best and of the greatest cost; in 
fact, everything was epicurean to a degree. Mr. Britton, 
my father, Mr. Murphy, and other members took fright. 
Could this be what was intended? Was this ‘ pot-luck’? 
The next meeting was put off; most members were only 
too glad to do the same, and abandon what might ultimately 
result in serious inconvenience. The Pot-Luck Club no 
longer existed ; it was dead, to all intents and purposes— 
killed by its own members.”’ 

A not uncommon experience, and one bearing its own 
moral. Leopold continues : 

“ Soon afterwards my father was invited to join a few 
friends with the intention of forming a committee to organise 
a new club, to be termed ‘ the Literary Union.’ . . . Thomas 
Campbell, the poet, was elected chairman ; Cyrus Reading, 
also an author, secretary. The Committee included Mr. 
C. W. Dilke, founder of the Athene@um,1a journal renowned 
for the lofty tone of its articles and the asperity of its 





174 John Martin, Painter, 


criticism. The name of Mr. Dilke sounded a note of terror 
in the imaginations of all humble authorlings, for it had 
become a synonym of merciless, critical excoriation. My 
father and Mr. C. W. Dilke, junior, afterwards Sir C. W. 
Dilke, Bart., with some others, composed the working 
committee. 

‘‘ A house was taken in Waterloo Place, and, for a time, 
all went well. The Literary Union obtained a certain 
class of members, but it could not be expected to vie with 
the Athenzum, into which club first one and then another 
obtained admission. My father retired from the Athenzeum. 
He had been elected by the committee a member; they 
having the power to elect a limited number of persons 
yearly who had attained distinction in literature, art, or 
science. The number was limited to nine. To be elected 
was a marked honour. All other members were chosen by 
ballot. After a few years the Literary Union was reformed 
under the title of ‘ The Clarence Club,’ when it became more 
noted for its free luncheons of ‘ biscuits and bitter,’ and for 
its cuisine, than for its members, who consisted of all 
sorts and conditions of men. It no longer exists as a 
club.” 

It is probable that the Pot-Luck Club was identical 
with, or grew out of a gathering that Ralph Thomas calls 
‘The Club,’ which met every fortnight (in 1832) at the 
houses of its members. It was the custom of this club, he 
tells us, for each member to draw a paper from a hat, and 
whoever drew the lowest number had to open a discussion, 


1 CW. Dilke acquired the Atheneum in 1830. 


His Life and Times 175 


choosing his own subject. Martin often took part in these 
discussions, and always spoke well, but he never would stand 
up and make a speech. 

“‘ Sir Thomas Lawrence,’’ he once said, ‘‘ proposed my 
health at a dinner at the Freemasons’ Tavern, but I felt 
tongue-tied. I had neither strength, courage, nor presence 
of mind to utter a word.” On another occasion, when he 
and Thomas were in the Lobby of the House of Commons 
together, Martin said: ‘‘ Much as I love to hear speeches 
and esteem speech-making, I never could speak in my life 
and never shall be able to put a dozen sentences together in 
public.”’ 

It was not that he had nothing to say—far from it. 
Everything points to his having been a great talker and a 
keen debater. When roused, he evidently forgot himself 
and his nervousness. Ralph Thomas gives a somewhat 
amusing account of his behaviour at a dinner given on the 
anniversary of Robert Burns’ birthday. It was in 1832, 
and they met at the Freemasons’ Tavern—Martin, Burns 
(son), Allan Cunningham and others. Thomas spent the 
next evening with Martin at his house, and the latter 
regaled him with a description of what had taken place the 
night before. 

‘There was no unity of feeling in the affair,” he said. 
‘“‘ The speeches displeased me, and I could not help hissing. 
I was so disgusted with their Tory sentiment ; they were 
out of place in commemorating the memory of Robert 
Burns. When I hissed some person cried out, ‘ Knock 
that fellow down.’ I looked for the utterer and scowled 
on Mr. Logan, who had turned savagely at me. I said to 





176 John Martin, Painter, 





him, smilingly, knowing him, ‘ How do you do, Mr. Logan,’ 
and kept on hissing, while the Tory boasts were persisted 
in. 

“It is a disgrace to Scotsmen to have so neglected Burns 
while he lived, and the sentiments uttered that night were 
at variance with all Burns’s feelings, writings, and actions. 
They excited me. 

“Allan Cunningham said: ‘ Burns was not so badly 
off with {70 a year, Martin, as you suppose; and the sale 
of his poems, especially the second edition, brought him 
a considerable sum.’ I replied: ‘ His father was steward 
to a gentleman and had only £20 a year. It was too little 
to support a wife and family. Burns’s independent spirit 
always kept him down. WHe was too noble for his age and 
country. Scotland owed him much, for he had caused 
thousands of persons to like the Scotch for his sake. He 
had gained a world’s admiration by his independent writings, 
but he lost the support of the rich, and men must be pre- 
pared to suffer if they indulge in the luxury of independent 
expression.’ ”’ | 
It would be interesting to know what were the ‘ Tory 
. sentiments ’ that set Martin hissing (as he did, be it remem- 
bered, after Queen Caroline’s death, when God Save the 
King was sung, the King being our unspeakable George IV.). 
They were probably sentiments that the Tories of our day 
would hiss at as heartily. But Martin was regarded as a 
revolutionary in those days. He was, says Thomas: 

“A Deist in religion, a radical reformer in politics, an 
independent and unselfish in art, and conscientiously honest 
in all things. I need hardly add that he found opposition 


‘OLL a 


“HHAYNIN HO HONVINAdAYN AHL 











yw 2 











His Life and Times 177 





general and distaste to his principles and opinions very 
frequent. But he seldom proffered his opinions or sought 
discussion even of his hobby horses.”’ 

He was a‘ radical reformer’ in good company, at all 
events. Charles Dickens must have been a man after his 
own heart. Both had known the upward fight and struggle, 
and were unable to forget their early sufferings. 

One other entry from Ralph Thomas’s diary of 1832 
affords a quaint picture of Martin’s circle at the time. 

“ Last night,’’ he says, ‘“‘ I took tea with Stebbing, after 
which we went to Martin’s. There we found Hogg, the 
Ettrick Shepherd, Mrs. Burns and Captain Burns, the 
youngest son of the poet, Allan Cunningham and wife, 
Godwin, Pringle—and about a score more. I take Hogg 
to be about fifty-three, very strong and healthy, the heartiest 
old cock I ever met. He sang two songs of his own (I 
believe) which were encored. Hesang ‘ Paddy O’Rafferty ’ 
with much power; his voice has a mellow, rich sound, 
sharp by turns with sweet upper notes, and he has a taste 
which gives his singing uncommon life. I never heard a 
song sung with more spirit, and when he came to one part 
he would slap the shoulder of Mrs. Burns, who sat beside 
him, hug and cuddle her with his right arm in so hearty a 
manner that, after the first shock, we were all much amused. 
Mrs. Burns, with the best possible good nature, laughed 
at it as much as any of us. And this friendly familiarity 
each time seemed to strike new fire and feeling into his old 
mountain flesh. 

“I was delighted by him, for, with uncommon polite- 


ness, he addressed me by name—drank to our better 
M 


178 John Martin, Painter, 


acquaintance, and promised to come and see me. I am 
sorry to add he forgot to keep his promise. 

‘Burns is a modest, unassuming man. Pringle says 
he resembles his mother. His features are regular, but 
Hogg and Cunningham, especially when they laugh, splutter 
and display a huge quantity of gums and jaws. Allan 
(Cunningham) sang ‘ Barring o’ the Door Well’; C. Land- 
seer sang ‘Olden Time’; Martin regaled us with ‘ The 
Gypsies ’ and another song, in his favourite minor key, and 
Burns gave us‘ The Castle of Montgomery ’ and others, all 
his father’s. I had asked Martin to sing the ‘ Castle of 
Montgomery,’ knowing how sweetly he sang it, and thinking 
it would specially please all the Scotsmen, but Hogg said 
no one should sing Burns’s songs but his own son while he 
was present. Burns sang softly and sweetly, but not to 
advantage after Hogg. . . . Then we had a chat, supper, 
and speeches till a very late hour. I walked home with 
Stebbing and he told me his early history.” 

Queer, contradictory old days of Victoria, when speech 
and manners were so formally precise, the proprieties so 
easily outraged, yet men indulged in orgies of emotional 
sentiment as they indulged in vinous convivialities, without 
stint or shame! These quaint journals bring them before 
us very vividly. We hear John Martin hissing at the Free- 
masons’ Tavern, or singing ‘‘ The Gypsies ”’ in his own house, 
or taking huge walks with Ralph Thomas and regaling 
himself on bull’s eyes and brandy-balls between his pzans 
of enthusiasm for the landscape around him. 

‘“These trips,” writes Thomas, “‘ were as mentally 
charming to us as they were physically beneficial. We 








His Life and Times 179 


_mingled mutual instruction with each springing delight, and 
nature reciprocated our rational joy. As Martin arrested 
my steps or speech to point out various lovely ‘ forms and 
shows’ of nature in her grandeur and sublimity, while he 
was wrapt in idolisation, I would apply some apt passage 
of a cherished author, which would appear to electrify 
him, and his steadfast eye would be fixed upon mine till 
I had concluded, when he would bound on like a startled 
hart. Sometimes his joy would find vent in song, and at 
other times he would quote some favourite passage, either 
of Milton, Gray, or Collins. .. . 

“This commingling of nature and art was to me an 
inexhaustible feast. But love cannot live on flowers, and 
on these occasions we smoked squibs and ate lollipops. I 
call to vouch (for this) every old woman keeping a small 
window for the show of sweetmeats within ten miles of 
Allsop Terrace, boxing the compass in the direction of green 
fields. What customers John Martin and I have been to 
them for brandy-balls, toffy, and bull’s-eyes! We cleared 
their bottles and kept the supplies fresh for younger children 
of the vicinity.”’ 

“Younger children” is good. How young they felt 
may be gauged by it, and by the next sentence: 

‘“ After reciting the divinest passages of some of our 
mighty men of mind, Martin would say: ‘After that a 
bull’s-eye,’ or, ‘ That deserves a brandy-ball.’ ”’ 

A year later Thomas writes: 

“IT spent the evening with Martin. We walked home 
with Graeff and Constable, the landscape painter, from 
the Western Literary Institution, after Moscati’s lecture | 





180 John Martin, Painter, 


on Improvisation. Took bread and cheese and grog with 
Constable at his house in Charlotte Street. After showing 
us some of his pictures, he told us he had worked in a mill 
as a miller, after he was a man, and up to that time he had 
never touched a brush... . 

‘‘ Stebbing had made a foolish speech about Martin and 
the Royal Academy the week before, at his Club night, 
which | Constable talked about and told us how he had 
answered. He said: ‘I showed them that if there was 
any blame anywhere, it was with you, Martin, for not 
complying with the rules of the Society. But that you 
need not mind being left out of the Academy; they could 
do you no good. I said that John Martin looked at the 
Royal Academy from the Plains of Nineveh, from the 
Destruction of Babylon, etc.,’ and added, ‘I am content 
to look at the Academy from a gate, and the highest spot 
I ever aspired to was a windmill!’ He went on comparing 
himself with Martin, speaking of himself and his work with 
earnest humility, and of Martin with the highest eulogium. 
There were several men, he said, that he should like to see 
in the Academy, but Martin had gone beyond the point at 
which it would have benefited him. His pictures were sold 
at prices higher than if he had placed them in the Academy 
Exhibition, and he was as universally known as any member. 
In conclusion he observed: ‘I felt the wish for a change 
in the rules and regulations while I was working my way 
up; but I was not, I confess, bold enough, or independent 
enough, or rich enough, to make the necessary resistance to 


o> 99 


effect any reform. 





His Life and Times 181 


‘“‘ Constable was a very prudent man,’’ observed Thomas, 
in conclusion. 

Another entry of the same time (1833) tells of a walk 
home-with Atherstone, who showed him an article he had 
written on Martin in the Edinburgh Review for June, 1829, 
for which he had not been paid till that year. He, Ather- 
stone, had applied many times for the money unsuccessfully, 
but hearing that Jeffrey } was in London he called upon him, 
and next day received a cheque for £20. This fact, so 
casually mentioned, throws a vivid light on the estimation 
in which John Martin was held at that date. One 
of the leading reviews pays a critic £20 for an article on 
him ! 

The statements of Ralph Thomas are generally to be 
trusted. He leaves a blank space in his diary whenever 
he is not sure of his facts. For instance, in July, 1832, he 
quotes John Martin as saying: 

‘“‘ The Emperor of Russia, when here, held up both hands, 
with expressions of delight and amazement while looking 
at ——”’ | 

The name of the picture is evidently forgotten and the 
diarist does not hazard a guess. But whatever the painting, 
the fact stated may well be true, since we know that John 
received a diamond ring from Nicholas I. 

We find that Martin changed his address again between 
1824 and 1828. His Design for the Seventh Plague of Egypt 
was sent to the Academy from 19, Charles Street, Berner 
Street, in 1824; while The Fall of Nineveh in 1828 went 


1 Francis Jeffrey, critic of the Edinburgh Review, 





182 John Martin, Painter, 





from 30, Allsop Terrace. The Dictionary of National 
Biography says that his address was Charles Street in 1837, 
but that must be an error, since we find The Deluge noticed 
in the Academy list of that date as coming from the other 
address. What happened we have no means of discovering. 
John may have let his house, or, in the hour of his pro- 
sperity, have taken for a time another house in the West 
End, away from his printing works. His occupation of the 
Charles Street house may have been longer than four years, 
as his pictures would be sent from the studio in the ordinary 
way, and bear its address. But as I find no mention of 
Charles Street in either of the memoirs before me, I conclude 
that he was not there long. Leopold, indeed, tells us that 
‘after thirty years’ residence in Allsop Terrace, my father 
removed to the only other house he ever occupied’; but 
Leopold’s memory is not always to be implicitly relied 
upon. It is possible that John Martin took the West End 
house only while the extensive alterations of his house in 
Marylebone were in course of progress. 

In 1833 we find him giving an exhibition of his own 
pictures in the Lowther Arcade, as the following letter to 
William Jerdan shows. William Jerdan, it will be remem- 
bered, was a writer and critic of importance in Martin’s 
day. As editor of the Literary Gazette for over thirty years, 
he wielded a powerful influence on contemporary art and 
literature, and he wrote also for the quarterlies. His 
autobiography, in four volumes, covers most of the period 
with which we are dealing. He was the intimate friend of 
Dickens, Ainsworth, and many other celebrities, including 
John Martin. 





His Life and Times 183 


Here is the letter. It contains an allusion to another 
matter, which shall be dealt with further on. 


“30, Allsop Terrace, New Road. 
‘“ Monday, March r1th, 1833. 
“MY DEAR JERDAN, 

“T have been so much gratified with your articles 
on the National Gallery that I cannot refrain from writing 
to express how perfectly I agree with you in all your notions. 
I know nothing of Mr. Wilkins, but the poor man seems 
to be so egregiously vain that it is evident nothing can be 
done with him, or one might feel tempted to destroy him 
with his own weapon—‘ the pure Greek.’ I sincerely trust, 
however, that the eyes of the Public are now sufficiently 
opened ; and that, in spite of the Royal Academy support, 
they will not allow the creation of another incongruous 
building to rival the (according to Mr. Wilkins) universally 
admired London University. As you mentioned that you 
- intend to open a few remarks on a National Gallery, I was 
on the point of sending a few prints for your approbation, 
when I saw an article, by a lover of the Fine Arts, in the 
Times of this morning, which so exactly expresses my 
sentiments, that any person who had heard me speak on 
the subject would imagine that I was the writer. If you 
have not seen the article let me request you to look at it ; 
for the remarks on the necessity of having the Gallery in 
a fine airy situation, are most just ; it is, indeed, impossible 
to preserve pictures in a proper state unless the air is good. 
The objections made by some to the situation of the Regent’s 
Park for the Royal Academy, because it is out of the way, 





184 John Martin, Painter, 


will scarcely hold good, when we consider the immense 
number of persons who annually visit the Zoological Gardens, 
as there are more visit them in three months than visit 
the R.A. in the whole season—and every individual 
pays 1s. Besides the R.A. is an established exhibition 
and the people would go out of the way to it. 

‘“T am going full tilt against our self-styled patrons of 
the Fine Arts, who endeavour to ruin us independents ; 
and as they will not give me an opportunity of showing 
my works decently at their exhibition I have determined 
on setting up for myself, and am on the eve of showing all 
my works at present in my possession in the Lowther 
Arcade. My rooms are not very convenient, being some- 
what too small, but I trust that you will honour me with 
a visit. 

“On Friday evening next (15th) my friend Mr. Donald- 
son will give a lecture at the Royal Institution on my ‘ plan 
for correcting the drainage of London by preventing the 
sewage from being thrown into the river, for preserving 
the manure, e/c., and I mention it to request that you will, 
if possible, favour me by attending it, as it is a subject of 
great public advantage; and I think will not prove un- 
interesting, especially at the present time. I have con- 
siderable support in high quarters, but am very desirous of 
its being made public. If you should feel inclined to give 
any description of the plan, I have enclosed a copy of my 
paper containing the details, as it might be of some service. 
Mr. Donaldson most likely will describe it differently ; but 
will not deviate from the points or the order of arrange- 
ment. If you go to the R.I. and have not enough tickets 





His Life and Times 185 


for yourself and friends, let me know, and I will send you 
as Many as you require. 

‘So much of your time is occupied, I ought to apologise 
for the length of this communication, and do so most 
sincerely. With compliments to all your circle I remain, 

“ Yours most truly, 
“ JOHN MARTIN. 
“ William Jerdan, Esq.” 


It is possible that this was not John Martin’s first 
exhibition of his own pictures in London for, as we have 
seen, The Fall of Nineveh was on view at the Western 
Exchange in Old Bond Street on May 17, 1828. There is 
other evidence to show that this was a private venture. 








186 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER XI 


John Martin at the height of his popularity. Frith’s tribute to 
his personal appearance. The ‘ Radical Hat.’ Contemporary 
appreciation of Martin’s work. Gift of Sevres China from 
King Louis Philippe. 

FRom letters such as the foregoing and others of this period 

we gather that John Martin was then at the zenith of his 

career and full of hope for success in certain schemes he was 
hatching, of which more hereafter. He seems to have been 
extremely popular and his personal attractions must have 
been great. Frith writes of him in his autobiography as 

“handsome John Martin,’’ and adds that he was “ certainly 

one of the most beautiful human beings I ever beheld.” A 

miniature of him in early life by Charles Muss, and an oil 

painting of later date, in the possession of Colonel Bonomi, 
bear out this statement. 

He was still living in Allsop Terrace, surrounded by a 
number of more or less celebrated persons—Leigh Hunt, 
Lord Erskine, William Beckford, Charles Dickens, and 
others. Leopold gives an account of the district and 
improves the occasion, after his wont, with a little political 
gossip of the day. 


‘“‘ Not far from my father’s residence, a splendid mansion 
named Harley House had been erected by a friend of ours, 





His Life and Times 187 


‘Miss Day, but it was, later on, occupied by the mad Duke 

of Brunswick. Miss Day was the daughter of Mr. Day, 
of the well-known firm of blacking manufacturers, Day 
& Martin. At this period the manufacture of blacking was 
confined to three great firms—Day & Martin, Henry Hunt, 
and Henry Warren—and all were in an extensive way of 
business. A cousin of my father had married a Miss Hunt, 
one Watkin Martin. 

“Such a connection may excuse an anecdote as a family 
reminiscence. Mr. Hunt’s family for ages had been extensive 
landed proprietdérs, but had become somewhat reduced in 
circumstances. The present members engaged in business 
and became Radical representatives. On the occasion of 
a great debate in the House of Commons on the land ques- 
tion, Mr. Hunt gave Sir Robert Peel the sharpest retort 
perhaps ever received by him in reply to an attack. Mr. 
Hunt had been liberal in speech, as usual, and Sir Robert, 
in reply, charged him with being unacquainted with the 
subject, which was one only for a land-owner and not likely 
to be understood by a mere tradesman. Mr. Hunt said, 
in reply, that what Sir Robert had stated was to some 
extent true. It wasa fact that he, Mr. Hunt, was a ‘ trades- 
man, and perhaps uninformed, but that he was the first 
of his race who had been reduced to ‘ trade,’ whereas Sir 
Robert’s family had been all tradesmen and manufacturers, 
and he was the first gentleman of his line! Sir Robert 
was taken aback and spoke no more that evening. 

‘“‘ At this period Henry Hunt, Sir Francis Burdette, and 
Joseph Hume were the Chief Radical members of the 
House of Commons. They all three wore drab or white 





188 John Martin, Painter, 


beaver hats; hence the term ‘ Radical Hat’ as applied to 
the old-fashioned white beaver.”’ 

Martin seems to have been bombarded with requests for 
illustrations to books at this time. We have long since 
ceased to admire the religious poetry of Queen Victoria’s 
early days. Even Festus, perhaps the most quoted poem 
in our language after Shakespeare’s, is almost unknown to 
this generation, and it is difficult for us, in our generation, 
to realise how this kind of poetry had laid hold of our 
immediate ancestors. A considerable number of writers 
indulged in flights of pious verse, on the lines of Milton and 
Bailey ; Byron did not disdain to take Cain for the pro- 
tagonist in a tragic drama; biblical subjects were, in short, 
the order of the day. And I have no doubt that a great 
many of these poems were illustrated by John Martin, 
though we know of only a few. 

I have before me a long letter from one of these minor 
poets, whose work is forgotten to-day, although it had, 
apparently, some vogue in his lifetime. It is interesting 
to see the stimulus and inspiration he derived from John 
Martin. The letter is sent from Bath, but bears no date ; 
so that it is impossible to tell whether he or Lord Byron 
was the first to present Cain as a subject for poetic drama. 


‘20, Northampton Street, 
‘ Bath. 
“My DEAR SIR, 
“It is with a feeling of the greatest pleasure that 
I beg your acceptance of a work which is, properly speaking, 
a first part to Cain, and which ought in point of time to 





His Life and Times | 189 


have been written first. I hope you will like it as well, 
if not better ; one advantage, at least, it has over the former 
work is, that it is totally freed from all ruggedness of versifi- 
cation. I have placed the second edition of Caim in the 
hands of Colburn, who has promised to exert himself and 
dispose of it speedily, and the third, which I am sanguine 
of, will be carefully corrected throughout, and several 
additions made, and all the notes omitted. Not being on 
the spot to correct the proofs, numerous errors crept in 
which represented me to be more careless than I really was 
For instance—one among many—the two last lines on the 
ode to yourself I wrote: 


‘“‘ Shall thy name, though thou be fled, 
Live-—till memory’s self be dead.”’ 
As it stands now, the rhymes are, I believe, repeated twice 
over. I do hope that I shall be enabled to offer you a 
corrected edition of the third, during the winter, the ap- 
_ pearance of which will give me the greatest possible pleasure ; 
and Colburn & Co. are very confident about it. 

“I consider such little attentions as these as tributes 
which are due to you, for you have long been acknowledged 
as the great Poet Painter of the day, without the shadow 
of arival. I will not go so far as to say that I have at any 
time copied from your fine conceptions, but I have had them 
always before my eyes (as I have those of Milton and Byron) 
and have been mindful of their style, and what I have 
thought of them I have, however feebly, declared. There 
is a passage, for instance, in ‘ The Revolt ’ which I should, 
perhaps, have never conceived, had I not caught it from 





190 John Martin, Painter, 


your style—I mean the attitude and gesture of Moloch 
immediately previous to the Ascent. 

“You will be glad to hear that both works are likely 
to become popular in Germany, the former, I am assured, 
is now under translation. The last time I heard of you 
was from Coleridge, who told me that you were employed 
in illustrating the Bible. JI thought you would eventually 
undertake this, for it is the fountain head, and higher you 
cannot go. 

“One thing I feel certain of, that whatever you are 
doing you can hardly add to your reputation, and if I 
envy you (which I most certainly do) it is in a generous 
desire to become eventually as distinguished in my own 
work, if that were possible. Let me express now my earnest 
hopes that this may find you in excellent health, and I 
pray you to believe me, my Dear Sir, 

‘Yrs. most faithfully and sincerely, 
“EDMUND READE.” 


Another letter from a contemporary writer is also not 
without interest, since it suggests that John Martin was 
illustrating Shakespeare for some publisher, and also draw- 
ing pictures for a publisher in Dresden. I have not, how- 
ever, been able to discover any trace of these. 


‘zx, Pump Court, Temple. 
Feb. 2 
‘MY DEAR SIR, 
‘““ My only excuse for troubling you with another 
copy of this book is the note at p. 218, where I have taken 





His Life and Times IQI 


the liberty of making an allusion to yourself. I have not 
yet heard of the arrival of your illustrations in Dresden, 
though I have not the least doubt that Retzsch will acknow- 
ledge them ere long. You will be glad to hear that you 
have made a good bargain for the continuation of the 
Shakespeare Outlines in this country. I rather think the 
Midsummer Night’s Dream will be the next. Believe me 
to remain, with the highest respect, faithfully yours, 
“A. HAYWARD.” 


Three letters from Martin Tupper in 1852 give a thumb- 
nail sketch of the author of Proverbial Philosophy in the 
full tide of his fame. The first, which is obviously hurried 
and confused, invites the artist to draw half a dozen illustra- 
tions for a book, quoting some of the subjects required— 
Rest, Ambition, Cheerfulness, etc.—and ends, “‘ hoping it 
may please you, and you have time to give my poor old 
book the benefit of your magic skill,’’ but does not mention 
the title of the book. The other two seem to refer to 
drawings sent by Martin to Tupper. 


“ Albury, Guildford. 
‘““ [une 19, 1852. 
““MY DEAR SIR, 

‘“‘ See what a good thing it is to give to a good man : 
one is sure to receive the true Homeric éxardp Boi, éEvveaBowwy, 
and I only hope that you may have made the Plate still 
more valuable by your autograph in the corner. I write 
to tell Hatchard’s people to take all care of it until I call; 
for I could not have it rumpled and crumpled by travel. 





192 John Martin, Painter, 


‘“ All thanks. 

‘“ Some day when you have a mind to it, and time—and 
fine weather—let me show you some of the beauties of fair 
Albury ; your painter’s eye (it is your ‘ poet’s eye ina fine,’ 
etc., etc.—‘ ut pictura poesis,’ you know) will revel in our 
landscapes. And you can bring Peter Cunningham with 
you—if he’ll come. 

“A day ticket will enable you to spend many hours 
here; and if you are a walker, I can find you good scenic 
sport. Only, if and when at any time you propose to come, 
please let me know beforehand that I may be sure to be 
at home to welcome you; and to send a carriage for you 
to the station—as per definite advice. 

‘About my old book, and the original object of my 
voyage to Battersea, if anything comes of it by way of 
illustration—well, and better than well :—if otherwise— 
still well and better than well, seeing it has given me the 
pleasure of your acquaintance. 

“Believe me to be—with the highest admiration of 
your genius, very truly yours, 

“MARTIN J. TUPPER. 
“John Martin, Esq., K.L.” etc., etc. 


On July 10: 


“My DEAR SIR, 

“As your valued ‘Plate’ has not reached 
Hatchards, and as, e’er now, I have found a parcel left me 
at Hatchetts by mistake—I write to tell you how it is that 
I have not yet had the courtesy to acknowledgeit. Further- 


= 
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His Life and Times 193 


more I take this opportunity of inquiring how far it may 
possibly suit you to favour me with some two or three, at 
any rate, of your glorious designs for my book, or with the 
whole half dozen I suggested to you in my last letter. 

“TI long to see your splendid triad of pictures all to- 
gether in some well-lighted Exhibition room; surely you 
have beaten even yourself in this gigantic effort of genius. 
Truly yours, 

‘““MARTIN TUPPER. 
‘John Martin, Esq., K.L.”’ etc., etc. 


These effusive letters, with their many commas and 
dashes, their enormous signature and the enigmatic “etc. 
etc.’ with which they end, do not seem to express the prim 
and formal writer of trite aphorism, but Tupper had ob- 
viously another side from that he offered to the public, and 
must have been a homely and genial fellow. As there is 
no work of Tupper’s illustrated by Martin, I suppose they 
did not come to terms. There can be no doubt that he 
supplied some drawings, but they did not appear in 
print. 

William Howitt was another of the writers who evinced 
some desire to bask in the reflected glory of John Martin 
by obtaining some of his illustrations to a book; though, 
again, the book is not specified. There is no date to this 
letter, a matter for some surprise, as Howitt counted 
himself a historian, and historians are expected to be 
precise. The author of a terrific onslaught upon the House 
of Lords (The Aristocracy of England) under the pseudonym 


of ‘John Hampden, Junior,’ however, was no slavish 
N 





194 John Martin, Painter, 


myrmidon to fact, and so small a detail as a date might 
well seem beneath his notice. He wrote: 


“ DEAR SIR, 

‘“‘T beg your acceptance of a copy of the work I 
once proposed to you to illustrate. The book is doing 
very well and has been highly complimented by people of 
taste and imagination. The Story of Victor”’ (or is it 
Nichor ?) ‘‘ is one I should have particularly liked to have 
seen illustrated by your pencil, had I not concluded to 
print the work without any embellishments. Mrs. Howitt 
begs me to present her compliment to Mrs. Martin and 


yourself. Yours truly, 
“W. Howitt.” 


A letter from the Duc de Broglie to John Martin and his 
teply concerning the gift of Royal Sévres china from Louis 
Philippe, may fitly close this chapter of correspondence : 


“ Paris, le 31 juillet, 1835. 
“‘ Ministére des 
Affaires Etrangéres. 
‘ Protocole. 

‘““Le Roi a recu, Monsieur, les six magnifiques 
estampes dont vous lui avez fait hommage, et a bien voulu 
les agréer avec une distinction particuliére. Sa Majesté 
m’a chargé de vous envoyer, en Son nom, et comme une 
faibile marque de la satisfaction que Lui ont fait éprouver vos 
beaux ouvrages, quelques piéces de porcelaine de Sa manu- 
facture royale de Sévres. Ces piéces vous parviendront 
par l’entremise de Son ambassadeur a Londres, 





FACSIMILE LETTER FROM THE DUC DE BROGLIE TO JOHN MARTIN. 
. 194. 


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His Life and Times 195 


“Le bel usage que vous savez faire de vos talents vous 
a acquis Monsieur, une haute renommée; et je m’estime 
heureux d’avoir, en accomplissant auprés de vous les ordres 
du Roi, l'occasion de payer a ces talents le tribut d’admira- 
tion qu ils méritent. 

““ Recevez, je vous prie, Monsieur, les assurances de ma 
considération la plus distinguée. 

DE BROGLIE. 
“ Monsieur John Martin, peintre, 
“a Londres.” 


‘London, 50, Allsop Terrace. 
““ September 17th, 1835. 
SIR, 

“TI beg leave to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of the 31st July, announcing the gracious intention 
of His Majesty the King of the French to mark his approba- 
tion of my works by presenting me with some pieces of 
porcelain from the Royal Manufacture of Sévres. I cannot 
sufficiently express the gratification and pride I experienced 
on the signification of this high honour, and hasten to inform 
you that this splendid and truly beautiful present has 
just arrived. I have endeavoured, however inadequately, 
to express my gratitude in a letter to His Majesty, which 
I have taken the liberty of forwarding by means of His 
Excellency le Général Sebastiani, and with every assurance 
of my profound respect, 

‘‘T have the honor to be, Sir, 
“Your most obedient and very humble Servant, 


‘“ JOHN MARTIN. 
‘“‘ Monsieur le Duc de Broglie.”’ 





196 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER XII 


Martin’s schemes for the improvement of London. His published 
plans and maps for the disposal of sewage, for a pure water 
supply, for the Thames Embankment. Approval of Thomas 
Sopwith, the famous engineer. Letters from distinguished 
persons in sympathy with his suggestions. The formation of 
acompany to carry them out. The usual obstructions. Mr. 
Facing-both-ways and his kind. 

In his letter to the Illustrated London News, already sagt 

Martin says : 

“In consequence of the strong interest I had ee 
felt in the improvement of the condition of the people, 
and the sanitary state of the country, I turned my attention 
to engineering subjects and two-thirds of my time, and a 
large portion of my pecuniary means have, since 1827, 
been devoted to the objects I have at heart ; though even 
here I have been obstructed and injured by the inefficiency 
of the patent laws, and, indeed, total absence of real pro- 
tection for original designs in engineering and mechanics. 

‘“My attention was first occupied in endeavouring to 
procure an improved supply of pure water to London, 
diverting the sewage from the river and rendering it avail- 
able as manure ; and, in 1827-28, I published plans for the 
purpose. In 1829 I published further plans for accomplish- 
ing the same objects by different means; namely, a weir 
across the Thames, and for draining the marshy lands, etc. 
In 1832, 1834, 1838, 1842, 1843, 1845 and 1847 I published 








His Life and Times 197 


and republished additional particulars—being so bent upon 
my object that I was determined never to abandon it; 
and though I have reaped no other advantage, I have, at 
least, the satisfaction of knowing that the agitation thus 
kept up constantly, solely by myself, has resulted in a vast 
alteration in the quantity and quality of water supplied 
by the companies, and the establishment of a Board of 
Health which will, in all probability, eventually carry out 
most of the objects I have been so long urging.”’ 

He tells us also here of his other schemes for improve- 
ment : 

“Among the other proposals I have advanced is my 
railway connecting the river and docks with all the railways 
that converge from London, and apparently approved by 
the Railway Termini commissioners, as the line they intimate 
coincides with that submitted by me and published in their 
report—the principle of rail adopted by the Great Western 
line; the lighthouse for the Sands, appropriated by Mr. 
_ Walker in his Maplin Sand lighthouse ; the flat anchor and 
wire cable; mode of ventilating coal mines; floating 
harbour and fires ; iron ships and various other inventions 
of comparatively minor importance, but all conducing to 
the great ends of improving the health of the country, 
increasing the produce of the land and furnishing employ- 
ment for the people in remunerative works.” 

It would be impossible, in the space at command, to 
dwell at any length upon all John Martin’s inventions and 
suggestions, several of which have materialised since his 
death, though no credit has been allowed to him. A 
volume might be written on this subject alone, and if written 





198 John Martin, Painter, 


en 





by an expert, might prove of great interest to generations 
yet to come. For example, one of his ideas was an under- 
ground railway, with a great central terminus, and this 
was, I believe, planned out and laid before the House of 
Commons, only to be turned down as quite impracticable ! 

But as I am dealing with John Martin as a personality 
and an artist, not as an engineer or a reformer, I can but 
touch lightly on this side of his extraordinarily complex 
character. His accusation against those who, he said, ap- 
propriated his ideas without acknowledgment would fill 
many pages, and there can be no doubt that he was badly 
treated. But what inventor ever reaps the full reward of 
his inventions, and is not a prey to the sharp commercial 
adventurer ? John Martin was no exception to this rule, 
but in his case he did not even have the satisfaction of 
seeing his ideas adopted in his lifetime, or of knowing 
himself, as he desired to be, a public benefactor. 

Wehave noted th at all the Martins were besieged by 
ideas, wise or wild, according to their different tempera- 
ment. William and Jonathan were full of theories and 
conceptions, as well as John, and, like him, arraigned 
nefarious persons who stole their ideas. But John had, 
in addition to the conceptive brain, a power of reasoning 
and concentration lacking in his brothers, and we have 
now to consider one of his ideas for the improvement of 
London that was of considerable value and importance— 
his scheme for a fresh-water supply and sanitary organisa- 
tion, with a suggestion for the Thames Embankment. 

Of course it is now almost impossible to discover how 
far this scheme was purely original and how far it has been 





His Life and Times 199 





carried out in the form he projected. Any definite state- 
ment might be met by the claim that others were,. at the 
same period, working on the same problems ; minds more 
technically capable of producing practical schemes. But 
that he was one of the first, if not ¢he first, to agitate on 
the subject, and that he found influential supporters, is a 
fact beyond doubt. And I think it equally beyond doubt 
that his untiring energy and perseverance, his strong 
personality and character for absolute integrity of purpose, 
were chiefly instrumental in the materialisation of schemes 
that must have been, as we say, ‘in the air’ at that 
time. 

Dr. Benjamin Richardson, in his able biography of 
Thomas Sopwith, compiled from the great engineer’s 
private diary and notes, says of John Martin: 

“Mr. Sopwith had unbounded admiration of the mar- 
vellous John Martin, the painter, whose works as an artist 
were, he thought, even surpassed by his suggestions as an 

engineer, by his plans for improved sanitation and by his 
| hopes of securing a healthy world.” 

And he quotes from Mr. Sopwith’s diary (May roth, 1836) 
as follows: 

“‘ Afterwards went to the Institution of Civil Engineers 
to hear Mr. John Martin, the great painter, explain his 
plans for improving the river Thames.” 

Dr. Richardson adds: ‘“‘ With the suggestions made by 
Martin he (Sopwith) was very greatly impressed, and I have 
heard him say that the whole plan indicated an advance 
of the most remarkable order—an anticipation, indeed, of 
the improvement that has been made in what is now called 





200 John Martin, Painter 


the Thames Embankment, and including other projects 
not less important and still unfulfilled.”’ 

Perhaps we cannot have a stronger testimony to John 
Martin’s originality and engineering genius than this. But 
that he believed himself to be gifted in that direction, and 
was sometimes tempted to wish he had followed the more 
practical and useful profession, one may learn from Leopold : 

‘““* Oh, my boy, if I had only been an engineer! Hun- 
dreds (of pounds) with me would then have been thousands. 
And instead of benefiting myself and a few only, I should 
have added to the comfort and prosperity and health of 
mankind in general.’ Such was the oft-repeated cry of 
my father, not only to me but to many of his associates. 
Great as his mark might be as a painter, his constant idea 
seemed to be that he had mistaken his vocation, and was 
fully under the impression that he ought to have followed 
that of an engineer. He felt certain that his mark might 
have been still more important. Be this as it may, it is 
quite clear that engineering pursuits were more congenial 
to his inclinations.”’ 

Diffused interests are pitfalls to genius or talent. They 
may here account for the distinct falling off visible, accord- 
ing to critics, in Martin’s later work. But it is impossible 
to believe that his son was right in saying that ‘ engineering 
pursuits ’ were more congenial to him than painting. He 
had suffered cruel disappointments at the time when he 
began to devote himself seriously to these plans for the 
improvement of London, and was, no doubt, asking himself, 
as the years crept on, what was the value of a purely personal 
success compared with that of an impersonal benefit to 


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His Life and Times 201 


his race and country. But that he ever had a greater love 
for any other pursuit than he had for art, one can never 
believe. She must have been his first and last love, how- 
ever pitilessly the years may have robbed his hand of its 
cunning, or altruistic ambition had weakened the first fine 
directness of his aim. 

Leopold tells us that his first published plan for the 
supply of pure water to the Metropolis and its environs was 
“a beautifully illustrated quarto volume,”’ but it is really 
a pamphlet. It was published in 1827-8 and went into a 
second edition, the second being probably a revised and 
improved one. 

“For years previous and up to the period of his death,”’ 
writes Leopold, ‘‘ his whole heart was centred in his grand 
plan, the Embankment of the River Thames, the great 
feature of which combined a great intercepting sewer, 
recovery of land and, above all, the construction of a noble 
terrace, walk and roadway. The various published plans 
for these vast improvements extend over a period of many 
years. With the sanction of the Government, under the 
superintendence of the Board of Works, this noble work 
has now been carried out.”’ 

This was written in 1889. It continues : 

“ Unfortunately life closed before my father’s suggestions 
and plans were more than in part completed ; but without 
doubt John Martin was the original projector of the noble 
Embankment of the Thames—a magnificent metropolitan 
improvement, to the plans of which he had devoted such 
large sums of money, much valuable time, and deep study. 
Yet both the Government and the Board of Works ignored 





202 John Martin, Painter, 


him and his name, and, without scruple, adopted his plan 
in nearly every particular. He was a painter, not an 
engineer! But at least a tablet in recognition of his lifelong 
efforts might be placed in the wall of the Embankment, 
marking his claim as original designer. His family look 
upon it not only as a matter of justice, but as their right, 
that the claims of John Martin should have some public 
recognition. They are in possession of documents bearing 
the signature of nearly every man of distinction at the 
period, approving and offering support to efforts in any 
way leading to the completion of works of such grand 
sanitary, public, and artistic design, which would be, not 
only the glory of London, but the wonder of the age.”’ 

It does not seem a very extravagant demand for the 
family of John Martin to make—just that recognition of 
his lifelong efforts—but it has not been granted ! 

This is not the place to discuss his claim to be originator 
of the Thames Embankment ; but one would like to know 
what counter-claims have been made, and, if Martin did 
not originate the idea, who it was that forestalled him. 

Certain of the documents to which Leopold alludes lie 
before me, kindly entrusted to my hands by the Baroness 
de Cosson, John Martin’s only surviving grand-daughter, 
by his youngest daughter, Jessie. They are most interesting 
and would fill a good-sized volume, including the following 
printed and MS. matter. 

1. A manuscript prospectus of the Sewage Manure 
Company. 

2. A plan, on tracing-paper, of the proposed sewer in 
Westminster. 





His Life and Times 1 Boe 


3. Large engraved map, entitled “‘ Plan of the London 
connecting railway and railway transit along both banks 
of the Thames, with an open walk from Hungerford to the 
Tower and from Vauxhall to Deptford. Metropolitan 
Improvement Plan by John Martin, September, 1845.”’ 

4. Small plan of the Great Metropolitan connecting 
railway and public walk, by John Martin, September, 1845. 

5. Address by John Martin to the shareholders of the 
Metropolitan Sewage Manure Company, May i1th, 1850. 

6. Manuscript list of Martin’s Metropolitan Improve- 
ment Plans. 

7. Printed form of thanks from the Royal Society of 
London to John Martin for ‘“‘ Documents and Drawings 
relative to the Thames and metrgponean Improvement, 
dated June 15th, 1849.” 

8. Another from the same society for ‘“‘ Outline of a 
comprehensive,”’ etc., etc., etc. 

g. Manuscript on ‘‘ The Importance of Preserving Open 
Grounds in the vicinity of large Towns.” 

10. Engraving of Plate 5th, Sea Lights, signed John 
Martin, 1829. 

rz. Manuscript agreement for engraving The Last 
Judgment picture, dated June 7th, 185r1. 

12. Similar agreement with regard to The End of the 
World and The Plains of Heaven, dated June 23rd, 1852. 

13. ‘‘ Means of Safely Making and Storing Gunpowder, 
and at the same time of establishing an efficient system of 
National Defences.’’ Four-page manuscript signed John 
Martin. | 

14. An appeal to ‘‘ The shareholders of the Metropolitan 





204 John Martin, Painter, 


Sewage Manure Company,”’ protesting against certain unjust 
charges, declaring that errors of management alone called 
for complaint and demanding a committee of investigation. 
Printed May 11th, 1850. 

15. “‘ Statement of dates corroborative of Mr. Martin’s 
Memorial.’’ Manuscript dated 1849 and signed John 
Martin, in Isabella’s handwriting. (See Appendix.) 

And several others, among them an interesting survey, 
in Martin’s writing, of the history of Hyde Park, showing 
some patient research work and applied to the necessity of 
open spaces about London. 

To these may be added forty-seven letters, some rough 
drafts of his own in Martin’s handwriting or that of his 
daughter Isabella, and others from such well-known men as 
John Bright, Michael Faraday, Joseph Toynbee, William 
Howett, Martin Tupper, Prince Albert (through his secre- 
tary), the Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Beaufort, 
Lord Grey, Lord Lincoln, Lord Robert Grosvenor, Sir 
Francis Beaufort, Sir John Swinburne, Charles Barry, Dr. 
Hodgkin, Dr. Elliotson, and others whose names are un- 
familiar to-day. Many of them are merely polite acknow- 
ledgment of letters or plans; some are making appoint- 
ments for meetings, among which the following is interesting 
(I have already alluded to it in Chapter X.), the handwriting 
is very tiny and precise. 


“12, Argyll Place, St. James’s. 
‘“* March 5th, ’409. 
“MY DEAR SIR, 
“It will afford me much pleasure to see your 





His Life and Times 205 
» water-works. On account of my numerous engagements 
I find it difficult to get so far as Chelsea unless I go early 
in the morning, when I could reach you on horseback at a 
quarter past seven o'clock ; if that hour is not too early I 
will be with you on Tuesday, if it is fine. 
| ‘Yours, dear Sir, very faithfully, 
‘““ JOSEPH TOYNBEE. 
‘“ John Martin, Esq.” 


Another from the same hand accepts an invitation to 
tea at ‘half-past seven o'clock’; presumably in the 
morning. 

Faraday seems to have been on more friendly terms 
since he begins his three letters, ‘‘ My dear Martin.”’ They 
are dated 1846, 1851, and 1852, and as the subject of the 
second deals entirely with the respective gravity of air 
and hydrogen its reference is problematical. John may 
have written to him about sewage, or lighthouses, or safety- 
lamps! But the first letter was probably concern- 
ing his plans for the drainage of London. It runs as 
follows : 


‘* Royal Institution, 
‘* November gth, 1846. 
“My DEAR MARTIN, 

‘‘T have received and thank you heartily for the 
reports. I haveread them. I give you joy of the develop- 
ment of your most important subject and proposition, and 
congratulate you upon the progress which its practical 
application is making. I trust that you will find, in this 








206 John Martin, Painter, 


case, that your labour will be followed by that pleasure, 
honour, and profit which is its just reward. 
‘Yours very truly, 
‘“M. FARADAY.” 


That he received much appreciation and commendation 
of his schemes, especially the greatest scheme for the 
drainage of London and beautifying of the Embankment, 
these letters amply show. But they show also that Mr. 
Facing-both-ways was too often his enemy. It is amusing 
to us to read the glib admiring phrase continually followed 
by the facile excuse; but it could not have been amusing 
to the earnest reformer and inventor himself. This is the 
kind of thing we find over and over again : 


“ Private. 
‘““ DEAR MARTIN, 

‘“T approve highly of your circular. It is simple, 
efficient, and unpretending, and providing that you afford 
no obstruction to the flow of the sewage, cannot, I think, 
as it at present appears to me, meet with any opposition on 
the part of the Commissicners of Sewers, whose name I 
think you had better, perhaps, introduce by a few words 
such as these, in the 8th paragraph: ‘ We have no doubt 
that the Court of Sewers will promote a work so much in 
furtherance of their important and useful labours, and that 
the Commissioners of Metropolitan Improvements will 
approve such an undertaking. And as it interferes with 
no private interest and secures an important national ad- 
vantage,’ etc., etc., etc. . 








His Life and Times 207 


“Upon consideration of the matter of my relative 
position in the Court of Sewers, I feel that I cannot take 
any part in your project, but may more disinterestedly 
promote its useful purposes for the public good by not 
being connected with it in any way personally. 

‘ Believe me, dear Martin, 
‘“ Very faithfully yours, 


de Tos, L. DONALDSON.”’ 


(Date illegible.) 


It is not difficult to imagine how our honest and direct 
John Martin would receive such a Tartuffian epistle, with 
its pitiful blend of blarney and compromise. And perhaps 
it shows more clearly than any explanation one could offer, 
the kind of thing Martin found himself up against in his 
eager attempts to better the conditions of the Londoner. 

A letter from the Duke of Beaufort on the same subject 
will have a familiar ring in the minds of many impatient 
reformers of to-day, though far more direct and straight- 
forward, It is written in his own hand. 


“DEAR SIR, 

“Whenever the Bill you refer to comes before 
the House of Lords you may rely on my giving it my best 
consideration. I do not think it possible that the Standing 
Orders can be reversed in this instance, as there is still so 
much Business remaining of those Bills which have complied 
with the Standing Orders that some, even of these, must 
stand over till next Session, and I conceive The Metropolitan 








208 John Martin, Painter, 


Sewage Manure Bill to be of too much importance to be 
hurried over at so late a Period of the Session. No doubt it 
may effect very great improvements, but it is a measure 
not to be carried without mature Consideration, as so 
many Interests will be materially affected by it. 
‘“T remain, dear Sir, very truly yours, 
‘“ BEAUFORT.” 


‘Oh, these material interests,’’ one can imagine Martin 
exclaiming. ‘‘ Who can make headway against them ? ”’ 

It would appear, from two letters written to him in 
1846 and 1848 by Dr. Hodgkin, that a company was formed 
by his friends and supporters for the purpose of carrying 
out his plans for the sanitary improvement of London. 
Dr. Hodgkin, a member of the Society of Friends,! was 
probably a man of some public standing. He writes in 
1846 : 


‘My DEAR FRIEND, 

“T am sorry that thy letter has remained so 
long unanswered, and must plead in excuse the circumstance 
of my having been much occupied and frequently called 
into the country. ... Having made this explanation, 
which will, I hope, clear me in thy eyes of having had any 
part in the past transactions which have given thee pain, 
I will now state what is my view of the case, as far as I 


1 Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866), M. D. Edinburgh, 1823, curator 
and pathologist, Guy’s Hospital, 1825. Member of London 
University Senate. Published several works, and a glandular 
disease was named after him (Dic, Nat. Biog.). 

































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Drewe by Wagerman. 


JOHN MARTIN IN HIS STUDIO. 


(From a pencil sketch by Wageman in “ Arnold’s Magazine of the Fine Arts.”’) 
b. 208. 











a 


His Life and Times 209 


am able to form a judgment respecting it. Thou wilt 
probably recollect that, when the subject of compensation 
to thee, as projector, was agitated, many months ago, I 
expressed the opinion, and wish, that thou shouldst receive 
an ample recompense. I originally joined the undertaking 
both to promote what I regarded as an important work and 
to aid thy laudable and persevering efforts. As to the 
mode of making this compensation, I believe I have hitherto 
given no opinion to any of my colleagues, but I may now 
say that I think it may be both more availing to thee and 
more just to the shareholders to make thy remuneration 
proceed from the profits of the concern. We may at once 
fix the proportion what thy portion shall bear to the profits, 
but to take thy remuneration from the price of the shares, 
which as yet the whole business is a speculation, will, * 
fear, be fatal to the undertaking on the outset, and bring 
us all into great discredit. 

‘“T say this with the sincerest friendship to thee, whom 
I should be glad to see deriving an ample income from thy 
project. And so far from having any selfish motive for the 
Opinion I have expressed, I am ready to move that if the 
projector’s bonus is to be taken from the price of the shares, 
the shares of the provisionalcommittee men and thestipulated 
bonus to them, which I never asked, should be applied to that 
object. Weshall then be above allreproach from the public 
and have given a substantial proof that we regard the project 
as amational benefit. I repeat, however, that I think the 
bonus ought to be the result of the profit of the undertaking. 

‘“‘ Thine sincerely, 


‘“THomas HopGKIN.”’ 
O 





210 John Martin, Painter, 


We knew that John Martin was harassed by debts about 
this time, and had spent a great deal of money in advancing 
his scheme ; but it does not appear that his pressing for a 
substantial recognition of his labours met with any response. 
Two years later we read, in Dr. Hodgkin’s other letter, 
that the company is beset by difficulties, and there is every 
reason to believe that it came to grief and accomplished 
nothing. ‘‘ I have not been able to be a regular attendant 
at the meetings of the directors,’ he writes, “‘ but I believe 
it is quite the feeling of the Board to do thee justice.” He 
speaks of opposition from without and lack of co-operation 
within the company, and of a desire to do justice to the 
whole body of shareholders. But nothing more definite, 
and a letter from R. Grosvenor the following year (1849) 
demonstrates the same kind of deadlock. 

“I sincerely regret,’ he writes, ‘‘to learn from your 
letter of the 20th that your exertions for the public good 
in forming plans for the improvement of the Sewage, so 
far from being rewarded, have hitherto proved serious 
inroads on your finances, and are likely to reduce you to 
still greater difficulties, if some compensation should not 
be very speedily made by those who have the power, sub- 
stantially, to recognise the claims of distinguished merit. 
You ask my advice as to the propriety of your handing a 
Memorial to Her Majesty’s Government, and whether it 
should be addressed to the Ministers collectively, or to one 
individual. I am of opinion that your best mode of pro- 
ceeding would be to memorialise Lord John Russell in your 
own name; perhaps, however, it would be advisable to 





His Life and Times 2II 


refer in the application to those friends who have an interest 
in your plans.” 

Two years later we have another glimpse of the 
subject from his daughter, Isabella, who writes of the 
Court of Sewers (July 6th, 1850) : 


‘My DEAR FATHER, 

“This day’s paper contains a short report of the 
proceedings of the Court of Sewers yesterday, and although 
there is no statement of progress in the general drainage 
plan, a slight summary of what passed may not be un- 
interesting to you, as a proposal for improving the drainage 
of an important district was advanced by Mr. Frank Forster. 
You may remember the loud outcries of the inhabitants of 
Holloway and Hackney, at having had to pay sewer rates, 
while no sewage arrangements were in progress which could 
relieve them. It appears that, at present, the drainage of 
the district runs into the Hackney Brook and thence to 
the Sea. The Committee propose to construct a sewer from 
Stamford Bridge to Lorraine Place, Holloway, a distance 
of three miles, to receive the sewage of Holloway and part 
of Hackney, which will still ultimately find its way to the 
Sea at a point, as I understand from the map, in the very 
centre of the East London Water Works! This sewer is 
not to be less than 13 feet below the surfaces and the average 
height is to be 7 feet ; and it is to have a regular inclination 
of 8 feet to the mile, the level of the invert at the lower 
end being 51 feet above ordinance datum. The cost of 
the whole, in the best description brick, £7,900. This 
proposal seems to me to coincide with your suggestion of 





212 John Martin, Painter, 


intercepting the drainage of the uplands, and from the 
point of Stamford Bridge the sewer might eventually be 
easily directed to the depét on Stamford Hill, leaving the 
sea so far unpolluted. 

‘The remaining business of the Court consisted in 
orders for little portions of sewers to the amount, in the 
ageregate, of {11,000; the contents of nine of these ad- 
ditional sewers will discharge into the Thames for the 
present. This confirms the conclusion that the Commrs. 
will form intercepting sewers near the river. 

‘In reply to some observations addressed to the chair- 
man—he distinctly stated that the works at those sewers 
about London and Blackfriars Bridge are only temporary, 
and would be discontinued when the general plan is decided.” 


There follow details of the funeral of Sir Robert Peel, 
and other items of London news, and the better concludes 
with the words : 


“Do not destroy this as I have no other memoranda 
of the business of the Court of Sewers. 
“Your roost affectionate daughter, 
‘““TSABELLA Mary MARTIN.” 


It must have been a blow, two years later, to receive the 


following special note: 


‘“ DEAR SIR, 
‘“ {am very much pained to be obliged to acquaint 
you that the Directors of the Metropolitan Sewage Manure 





His Life and Times 213 


Company do not think that it will be possible fer them, in 
the present condition of the Company, to engage in the 
extended scheme you propose for their consideration. The 
dead weight of the past miscarriage of the Company upon 
their shoulders precludes the hope of reaching the distant 
hills of Hounslow with the fertilising showers of London 
Sewage, vainly to be attempted by means of calls and new 
subscriptions from a reluctant proprietary, exasperated by 
frequent disappointments and struggling to escape their 
present liabilities at the smallest costs. 

“ You will, therefore, be so good as to excuse my entering 
into any details on this occasion, and believe me, dear 
Sir, your very obedient servant, 

“ OLIVER HARGREAVE.”’ 


On the opposite page there is a rough copy of a letter 
in Martin’s writing : 


“ DEAR SIR, 

“ Certainly nothing was farther from my thoughts 
than that the Met. Sew. Co. in its present crippled state, 
could engage in amy extended scheme of works whatever, 
and my object in opening a communication with our friend, 
Dr. Hodgkin, was simply to consult as to how far it might 
be practicable to recover from past misdeeds, and to ac- 
complish some suggestions as to the means of connecting 
the existing company with the general System of Metro- 
politan Drainage. 

“ Although as much in the dark as the other share- 
holders respecting the measure of the Directors, yet the 


214 John Martin, Painter, 





results make me fully aware that the company cannot do 
anything without a radical change ; and that, unfortunately, 
owing to internal divisions, injudicicus and _ ill-directed 
experiments and continusd misrepresentations, both the 
company and the object had suffered material injury ; bat 
I own that I did not think the case entirely irremediable. 
As, however, the company seems literally to be defunct and 
past resuscitation, of course further attempt on my part 
would be futile. But I have, at least, the satisfaction of 
knowing that it has no power of obstructing the progress 
of those who may be disposed to move.” 


A note in Serjeant Thomas’s diary gives an amusing 
sidelight on Martin’s obsession : 

“Nov. 2nd, 1840.—Yesterday I took tea with Martin. 
Having read all day we walked in Hyde Park, but I left 
by six, having been bored to a dead headache by the old 
story of Patent Rope Cable, Stink keys and Sewers, etc. 
I am so fond of the company of Martin that I can’t help 
going, but if he gets upon that, all is over with me. He 
couldn’t sleep last night and he thought of something new 
as to sewerage backing, etc. Everything he does, too, is 
borrowed or stolen from him, so his time is absolutely lost 
upon those subjects ; but to oppose or dissent is tc anger 
and offend him, so I am obliged to be a listener in 
torture.” 

This from his most loyal and devoted friend, is a very 
strong testimony to the state of John Martin’s mind during 
those years of struggle. But that no amount of such 
‘torture’ could make Ralph Thomas swerve in his fidelity 


Se : 





His Life and Times 215 


and admiration is plain from a later entry (January Ist, 
1844), when he says of Martin : 

“He has genius and untiring energy. His eye and 
cheek light up with the fire of feeling as he warms with his 
subject, and he is eloquent even without art or study, 
eloquent by nature. I feel I always learn something good 
from him, both matter and manner. And I felt to-day, 
as I did the first day I was introduced to him, that it is one 
long gratification and reward, worth all my struggle, to 
have known and to be the friend of such a man.” 

Eloquence is wasted on sewage, and even John could 
not make it interesting to his friend. But sewage could 
not part them! To the last Ralph Thomas sits at Martin’s 
feet and looks up at him with adoring eyes. 





216 John Martin, Painter, 





CHAPTER XIII 


Dark days for the Martin family. John, materially injured by the 
bad state of the copyright laws, finds that the {20,000 
brought him by engravings has all melted away. He is in 
debt and distress. His schemes for improving London have 
failed. Letters to the Queen and Ministers ignored. His 
nephew, Richard, commits suicide in his house. The Corona- 
tion picture revives his fortunes. He resolves upon trying a 
branch of art new to him, a life-size historical picture, ot 
which we hear no more. Quite free from debt and making 
money again in 1843. 

For some years, between 1828 and 1838, Martin passed 
through a time of sore distress and difficulty. He madea 
great deal of money, which seems to have slipped through 
his hands too quickly, and the unsatisfactory state of the 
copyright laws put him at the mercy of pirates, who not 
only appropriated thus sums that should have been his, 
but injured his reputation by flooding the market with bad 
prints of his work. 

Having sold his fifty plates illustrating the Bible to Mr. 
Bull, the publisher, for £2,000, and his plate of The Cruci- 
fixion to Moon and Boys, print-sellers, for £1,000, he had 
begun to regard engraving as a source of income upon which 
he could reasonably count ; but this source was tapped by 
a number of fraudulent publishers and print-sellers against 
whom, it appeared, he had little redress. It is on record 
that he brought one action against a man named Brooks, 


of Bond Street, at the Court of Common Pleas, and won it. 





His Life and Times 217 


But beyond having to pay the costs of the trial and being 
bound over not to print or sell any more of John Martin’s 
copyright engravings, the pirate seems to have got off 
without any payment to Martin; and we are told that 
other printers, unintimidated, went on gaily selling his 
pictures for their own entire benefit. 

Martin’s generosity to his family and friends has been 
noted before. He lent money freely to anyone who asked 
him for it, and was fleeced of large sums by unprincipled 
men who traded on his good-heartedness. He was not a 
borrower himself, having the independent man’s dislike of 
incurring obligations which could only weigh on him, and 
he is reported to have spoken very bitterly of those so- 
styled friends who borrowed from him continually and forgot 
to pay him back. His brothers always sponged on him, 
as we have seen, and his weekly entertainments must have 
run away with a good deal of money, as he was a true North 
Countryman in his lavish hospitality. Add to all these 
_dranis upon his purse the large sum he expended on his 
schemes for the improvement of London, and it is easy 
enough to know why he fell into low water. 

‘“T feel myself,’ he told Serjeant Thomas in 1837, ‘‘a 
ruined, crushed man. [| shall sink now; there are no 
more bright days in store for me. My eyes have been 
opened to the state of my affairs and I am a pauper. I 
am dishonoured. I know not what will become of us. I 
have never attended to money matters and this is the 
consequence. I have earned £20,000 in a few years and I 
am now not with a penny. I have been plundered and 
deceived.”’ 


ars John Martin, Painter, 


i 


He spoke very bitterly of one Burns, a solicitor, to whom 
he lent £500, and of his brother Richard, who both dis- 
honoured the bills they gave him. 

‘All my time, labour, and anxiety have been thrown 
away; all my property and hope of support, my security 
from dependence, as I looked upon it, all must go—and to 
raise £500 and other sums for the debts of others! Oh, is 
it not heartless? I did it as a friend. My brother, too, 
and other relations bringing me down to disgraceful ruin 
at a time when I hoped all my projects were ripening into 
practical operation.”’ 

Ralph Thomas tells us how he walked with Martin 
round Kensington Gardens and Park “for about five hours,” 
listening to his lamentations on the evil days that had 
befallen him, a sad chronicle of debt, doubt, and disappoint- 
ment. For in addition to his pecuniary embarrassments, 
Martin had received no answer to an application he had 
made (under persuasion of his friends and admirers) for the 
post of Historical Painter to Queen Victoria, and his Thames 
plans had failed to materialise. Of the latter Thomas 
writes : | 

‘‘ His Thames plan is to him as lost. Dr. G. has, with 
Burns, the attorney, manceuvred the matter, to Martin’s 
inextinguishable distaste and abhorrence, having made a 
job for himself out of it already, and injured the concern 
permanently ; also having called himself (in a paper which 
he got Martin to sign) ‘ the Maturer of the plan,’ and having 
as such given himself advantages which were repulsive and 
destructive to the whole concern. Martin is disgusted 
with G.—not less so with the solicitor, and he has with- 





His Life and Times 219 


a ee Ue 





en 


drawn ; after infinite worry, labour, expense, and loss of 
time.’’ 

We know what it must have cost Martin to relinquish 
his beloved scheme ; and the ignoring of his testimonials 
by the Queen and her advisers would also be a bitter pill 
to swallow. 

“He has such a proud and independent mind,” says 
Thomas, ‘‘ that he has scarcely ever asked a favour in his 
life, and requires to be worked up before he will doso. . . . 
He feels, therefore, this coldness and neglect as cruel stings 
to his pride.”’ 

His wife told Serjeant Thomas that this was, indeed, 
the first cause of his deep depression. But when Thomas 
rallied him upon it, asking, ‘‘ Can you let so small a matter 
dash your spirit? ’’ Martin replied that he could bear 
fifty such disappointments calmly and patiently, “‘ and 
add to them the carpings of critics and the false stories 
heaped about me by friends of the Academy ”’ ; but what 
galled him was that those he had trusted and believed his 
true friends had been false to him. It was this, and the 
position of debt and insolvency in which he found himself, 
that had plunged him into the Slough of Despond. 

‘He has a strong spirit,”’ writes Thomas, ‘‘ an earnest, 
active mind, as full of generosity as genius; but is a mere 
child in the business of life. All his mind and energies 
being engrossed in his profession, and in his hobby projects, 
he has left all his money matters to others.”’ 

And again, in January, 1838: “‘ Mrs. Martin came to 
see me respecting getting some more money on pictures. 
She says they are sorely distressed and talks about calling 


220 John Martin, Painter, 


their creditors together. .. . I do not know what they 
will do. They have got £500 from Tilt for the Bible plates,* 
but they now want {600 to redeem the pictures, plates, 
etc., which Phillips the auctioneer, holds.”’ 

And later he writes: ‘ Mrs. Martin called about getting 
up a raffle or, as she calls it, a lottery, of some of his old 
pictures. I spoke to him about it, and it is against his 
feeling, but, he fears, inevitable. They propose to raise 
£1,500 by two-guinea shares. He seems now disposed to 
give up working altogether, he does nothing but mourn and 
despair. His plates and pictures being in Phillips’s hands, 
he fears he shall lose his Nineveh plates and all, and is 
beyond all consolation. ...He is no longer the same 
man. Haggard looks and distempered mind have seized 
him. He blames his family for not saving him from all 
this misery and poverty.” 

Again in March, 1838: ‘‘ Mrs. Martin came here on 
Monday. Oh, what a state of anxiety and distress she is 
in! Martin, she fears, may go out of his mind, and she is 
afraid to speak to him. As to herself, she says his conduct 
will lead her to do what he will be surprised at, for she 
cannot endure much longer such distress and anxiety. He 
is sullen and will not speak to her or anybody.” 

It was in August of the same year that Jonathan’s son 
became insane and committed suicide in John Martin’s 
home, which must have put a terrible climax on the misery 
of the household. If anything could have driven the un- 
happy man out of his mind, that event was calculated to 


1 I am unable to explain this statement, unless Martin engraved 
a smaller set of plates for another Bible. 





His Life and Times 221 


do so. But, apparently, he had rallied from his state of 
despair and was working again before it happened. It is 
more than probable that poor Richard succumbed under the 
weight of general depression in the family upon which he 
was quartered ; but his uncle was made of different stuff 
and possessed within him the recuperative power to shake 
off the incubus. 

His fortunes began to mend towards the close of the 
year 1838, and in 1839 he was inspired to paint a picture 
which led to a resuscitation of his fame and name—The 
Coronation. 

“The painting of this picture,” says Thomas, ‘‘ was a 
fortunate circumstance for Martin, and he has availed 
himself of all the advantages it suggested. . . . It struck 
him that to introduce portraits into this work would give 
it interest. Nothing daunted by his want of experience or 
reputation in this line of art, but feeling he could do that, 
or anything else if he tried, he set about writing to all the 
distinguished personages that attended this interesting 
ceremony, hoping to induce them to sit to him. And his 
hope was realised. 

“He succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectation. 
They came, they sat, they were painted. And when they 
came they saw the works hanging on the walls, or in his 
gallery, and admired them. One bought one, another 
bought another. Prince Albert, Earl Grey, Lord Howick, 
the Duke of Sutherland, one after the other sat, and Martin 
sold! Earl Grey charmed Martin one day. He mistook 
the light streaming across a picture for an effect of the real 
sun shining across the gallery, and asked him to draw the 








222 John Martin, Painter, 


blind. He could scarcely believe they were rays of paint. 
The delusion was admired and talked of.”’ 

It was renewed life to Martin, this picture, and he was 
up working at it every morning at five o’clock, sticking to 
it all day. In his splendid faith that he “‘ could do any- 
thing he tried to do”’ he adventured with all the vital 
energy of youth and made a fresh start in life at the very 
moment when it had seemed that he must sink under 
waves of despair. 

There were dark hours occasionally, even while he was 
working on this picture. His family was still depressed, 
debts still harassed him. “I offered to lend him some 
money,’’ says Thomas, ‘‘ which he again obstinately refused 
to take.” + But when, later in the year, his picture of the 
Coronation was in Buckingham Palace and he received 
sums amounting to {800 from Earl Grey and the Duke of 
Sutherland for pictures, besides other money from engray- 
ings, his spirits, and the family spirits, rose, and his friend 
writes exultantly (October 26th, 1839): ‘‘ He is now going 
on in glory, and working indefatigably.” 

He must indeed have worked like ten men to achieve 
all he did between 1840 and 1852, when The Destruction of 
Sodom and Gomorrah appeared at the Academy. We find 
him represented in both the most important art galleries 
of London by an enormous number of landscapes, as well 
as by subject-pictures. And during most of the time he. 
was also expending abundant energy in agitating for the 
improvement of London. His passion for art could not 


1 He did, however, on one occasion consent to accept a loan 
from his faithful friend. 








His Life and Times 223 


extinguish his interest in science, engineering, invention, 
and reform. Nor must it be forgotten that he was working, 
in the first years of the fifties, on those last ambitious 
pictures, The Last Judgment, The Great Day of His Wrath, 
and The Plains of Heaven, powerful conceptions that would 
have taxed all the powers of a younger man to execute. 
And he was then over sixty years of age. 

In 1843 we find him starting on another venture, 
chronicled by Ralph Thomas as follows : 

“He is determined to try a picture for the House of 
Commons, and has set about a labour which would have 
intimidated most men, especially men who had earned 
reputation and feared to lose it. He determined to paint 
King Canute challenging punishment for himself on a charge 
of murder, a subject worthy of John Cross who painted 
the incomparable Richard, Ceur de Lion, now in the House 
of Lords. . 

‘This is another style quite new to him, foreign to all 
his previousstudies. His great success was in architectural 
perspective ; besides which he has, in late years, wonderfully 
succeeded in pure landscape, now in oil, now in water- 
colour. And now he’s working at the highest flight of the 
art, an historical life-size figure-picture. Nothing daunted 
by the difficulty of the work and the novelty of the labour, 
he has bought bones and figures and set to work with heart 
and soul to study anatomy. The attempt is noble and to 
fail is no disgrace. All students of the figure learn, by 
many years’ Jabour, the difficulty of accomplishing this task 
creditably, and if Martin has not become a Frost or a Le 
Jeune in correctness, he draws the figure tolerably well and 





224 John Martin, Painter, 


has much improved himself. He has made a small cartoon 
and a life-size one.”’ 

It is not every artist who, after achieving a world-wide 
fame, sets himself the arduous work of a student ; and that 
a man of such abounding self-confidence as Martin should 
do so is certainly remarkable. Perhaps the drawing of his 
figures in The Coronation had been called in question, for 
we know that adverse criticism is a fine stimulus to effort. 
At all events, I think it might be shown that John’s 
anatomical studies helped him in his last pictures, especially 
The Great Day of His Wrath, wherein the nude bodies of 
men and women are shown in their ghastly peril, falling 
into gulfs of darkness amid the hurtling rocks and raging 
seas. 

Serjeant Thomas tells us that Martin was partial to 
Canute, and we know that his picture of that monarch 
commanding the waves to stop at his feet received the 
silver medal of the Liverpool Academy. But we hear no 
more of the larger picture, and, obviously, it was not accepted 
by the House of Commons. So Martin once more suffered 
one of his many disappointments. But we learn that he 
was never again in financial difficulties, for Serjeant Thomas 
writes the same year (1843) : 

‘“‘ Martin says he is better off now than ever in his life ; 
he only owes four or five hundred pounds, and he has a 
deal of property by him, and immediate power over such 
a sum, and more.”’ 

His daughters were making good marriages and his 
sons prospering in their careers. We may conclude that 
the clouds had rolled over the Martin household, and that 








His Life and Times 225 


irritable and irascible as he must inevitably have been at 
times, under the unrelaxing strain of his strenuous mental 
and physical work, John Martin was normally his own 
genial self; taking his long walks, sucking brandy-balls, 
and descanting on everything under the sun; entertaining 
many friends, and, doubtless, often boring them with dis- 
sertations on sewage and other dull matters. In the next 
chapter we will discuss some of those friends. 





226 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER XIV 


Some of John Martin’s friends and acquaintances, Luke Clennell, 
Sir Charles Wheatstone, J. K. Brunel, George Stephenson and 
others. A trial trip on one of the first engines. Letters to 
Prince Albert and others. Martin’s religious views. His 
further inventions; lighthouses, fireproof ships, _ etc. 
Exhibitions of science and machinery. The Old Panoptican. 
Household Words and Martin’s Pamphlets. 

ONE of John Martin’s friends, a North-countryman like 

himself, hailing from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was Luke 

Clennell, whose picture, The Charge of the Light Brigade, 

was once so famous. Leopold tells us that “so highly was 

the picture appreciated that an unusual permission was 
granted by Government to erect a temporary wooden 
building, facing Hyde Park, in which it could be publicly 
exhibited.’’ Clennell was a pupil of the Bewicks, and so 
skilled a wood-engraver that his instructors gave him per- 

mission to attach his name to blocks issued by them, a 

distinction permitted to few of their pupils. He and 

Martin were friends in their boyhood, and the success of 

the latter in London tempted Clennell to try his fortunes 

there. He achieved a certain distinction but over-taxed 
his brain and died in an asylum. The Waterloo picture 
; 

was the last he ever painted. 

Another friend of Martin’s was Sir Charles Wheatstone, 


to whom we are indebted for the concertina. In 1836 








His Life and Times 229 


Wheatstone ‘constructed an electro-magnetic apparatus 
by which signals were conveyed through nearly four miles 
of wires, and he was knighted, with W. F. Cooke, the 
following year for their invention of the magnetic telegraph. 
A few years later Wheatstone’s alphabetical printing 
telegraph was patented. Ten or eleven years earlier he 
had invented the concertina and the Wheatstone con- 
certinas are known as the best in the world to-day. Both 
Leopold Martin and Ralph Thomas give us particulars of 
his friendship with John Martin. 

“When Charles Wheatstone was comparatively un- 
known in the world of science,’ writes the former, “he 
became a constant and valued friend of my father. This 
was long before the electric telegraph investigations and 
experiments were complete, or the wonderful results thought 
of. Some time after this early friendship, Mr. Wheatstone 
had been appointed professor at King’s College, an appoint- 
ment that was hardly popular—as he failed as a lecturer. 
His utterance was so rapid that it was nearly impossible to 
follow him... . 

“ T well remember accompanying my father to Somerset 
House to witness some of the professor’s experiments with 
the first electric telegraph wire. He had a wire embedded 
in the bottom of the river Thames, passing from the College 
on the Middlesex side to the Shot Tower, near Waterloo 
Bridge on the Surrey side, thus connecting the two counties. 
Messages were passed without any difficulty and with perfect 
success. Thus encouraged, Mr. Wheatstone made the 
invention the subject of constant study. 

“It was about this time I accompanied him, with my 





228 John Martin, Painter, 


father, to the India Rubber Cable factory of Messrs. Enderby 
at East Greenwich. Mr. Enderby explained a new applica- 
tion of sulphur to liquid india-rubber in coating wire for 
use in his contemplated submarine cable. Mr. Wheat- 
stone, at this period, was seldom seen at my father’s without 
some novel, ingenious model or invention, such as an 
instrument for measuring the velocity of light, or for electric 
currents, or for improved construction in harmoniums, or 
in mouth or finger instruments of more or less importance. 
. . . Sir Charles Wheatstone was small in feature, child-like 
to a degree, short-sighted, and with wonderfully rapid 
utterance, yet seemingly quite unable to keep pace with 
an overflowing mind. To the close of my father’s life he 
remained a fast friend.”’ 

Martin appears also to have been well acquainted with 
George Stephenson and other scientific men, including J. K. 
Brunel, the engineer of the Great Western Railway. In 
1841, his son tells us, Martin received an invitation from 
the latter to accompany him on an experimental trip, in 
which to test the power and capability of a broad-gauge 
engine as to the speed to be attained. As yet no experi- 
ments had been made by authority. The arrangements on 
this occasion, for a positive test, were most complete. 

‘““ A most experienced engine-driver was to take charge 
of the engine, one of the most powerful the company had 
constructed. On themorning appointed my father’s friend, 
Mr. Wheatstone, accompanied him to meet Mr. Brunel at 
the Paddington Station. They were attended by time- 
keeping clerks and a very old office assistant. The party 
drove on the engine—there were no carriages—to the 





His Life and Times 229 


Southall Station, at which point the experiments were to 
commence. The first object was to try to discover the 
time in which full speed could be obtained, and in how 
short a distance the engine could be pulled up and brought 
to a stand. But the chief object Mr. Brunel had in view 
was to ascertain the highest rate of speed. 

“ The engine was provided with a thick plate glass in 
front, to protect those upon it from the strong current of 
air With Mr. Brunel’s eye on the steam pressure gauge 
and hand on the safety valve, we were off, and in half a 
mile we were running at ‘top speed,’ the time-keepers 
busily at work. To the great satisfaction of Mr. Brunel 
and the astonishment of all, it was discovered that the 
distance of nine miles from the Station at Slough had been 
run in six minutes, or at the rate of ninety miles an hour— 
a very different result from that which Mr. Stephenson’s early 
calculations would have led one to expect.? 

“The morning spent with Mr. Brunel,’’ Leopold con- 
cludes, ‘‘was a truly memorable one for all parties; 
especially so to my father, who, from the first—as far back as 
the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 
1830—was of the opinion that the speed of trains was 
practically unlimited.” | 

John Martin was, according to the same authority, 
deeply interested in ‘‘ the important question relating to 
transverse or longitudinal sleepers, and the speed to be 
obtained on the broad, narrow, or intermediate gauge.” # 





1 We may venture to doubt Leopold’s accuracy here. 


2 Leopold claims that a certain laminated beam, or girder, and 
a longitudinal sleeper, still in use, were invented by his father, 





230 John Martin, Painter, 


He was present at a meeting of a Committee of the House 
of Commons at which the elder Stephenson had stated, in 
evidence, his opinion that eventually a speed of twelve miles 
an hour would be obtained for ordinary trains! It was 
the same meeting at which Stephenson made his famous 
retort about ‘the coo.’ 

And on another occasion he gave evidence with George 
Stephenson in an inquiry into accidents in coal-mines, when 
the question of safety-lamps versus improved ventilation 
was discussed. George Stephenson believed that the careful 
use of the safety-lamp was of much more importance than 
any improved system of ventilation which John Martin 
advocated. Stephenson, ‘‘ with the appearance of a working 
man out in his Sunday best—blue coat, buff waistcoat, 
drab trousers and such a white tie, wound two or three 
times round his neck !—gave evidence in plain, matter-of- 
fact style,”’ says Leopold, ‘‘ and, being an engineer, of course 
carried the day against a mere painter.” 

In spite of the fact that John Martin, in his later years, 
broke away from the strictly orthodox theology in which 
he had been reared, he had, we are told, many good friends 
among Churchmen and other professed Christians. Dr. 
Dibden, rector of St. Mary’s, Bryanstone Square, was one ; 
an ardent book-lover and collector of choice editions (as 
Martin himself was, in a lesser way). And very staunch 
friends, too, were Dr. Howley and Dr. Harcourt, the Arch- 
bishops of Canterbury and York, Dean Ireland, Dean 
Milman, and Dean Buckland, with the Bishops of London, 
Norwich, Durham, and Chichester, if Leopold Martin may 
be believed. He and Ralph Thomas both devoted con- 





His Life and Times 231 





siderable attention to the religious opinions of the painter, 
and both give assurance of his “inward and spiritual grace, ” 
though Serjeant Thomas is uneasy at his rationalistic 
speculations. Says Leopold: 

‘‘ He was a man of piety and strong religious impressions. 
.. . His character, as known to the world and in private 
life, was that of a deeply spiritual worshipper of the Bible ”’ ; 
and he goes on to tell how his father, while taking sketches 
for his coronation picture in Westminster Abbey, was 


c 


suddenly so overcome by a “ glorious anthem breaking 
from organ and choir,” that he fell on his knees and could 
work no more that day. A Bible and the poems of Milton 
lay always near his easel, and these two works were his 
constant companions. He was never at a loss, his son 
declares, for a quotation from one or the other. 

Perhaps this assurance is hardly necessary. The in- 
spiration of the bulk of John Martin’s work is too obvious. 
Nevertheless he seems to have held, for his day, advanced 
and liberal opinions on religious matters. “ Martin,’’ says 
Thomas, ‘“‘is a thorough Deist and believes that all that is 
good flows from a God. But he entirely disbelieves that 
anything not good, merciful, or great can come from such 
a source. ... He railed at the Jews for imputing atrocious 
acts to Him. If they committed a massacre for interest or 
vengeance they said it was God that commanded them. 
If any man was rash, vindictive, or inhuman, all his acts 
of wickedness perpetrated for the purposes of his crait, 
were attributed to the direction of God!”’ 

According to Martin, David was “‘a cruel monster,’’ and 
he denied that he could have been a man “ after God’s own 





232 John Martin, Painter, 


heart.’’ ‘‘ David took the merit of this title to himself,’’ 
he said, ‘‘ just as Henry VIII. called himself ‘ Defender of 
the Faith!’’’ And in his opinion it was wicked to say 
that God commanded the inhuman crime of the sacrifice 
of Isaac by his father. He denounced Jacob as a thief 
and refused to believe that God loved him better than 
Esau; that He would “countenance frauds in violation of 
humanity, honesty, and morality.” Moses, he declared, 
was a wicked murderer and robber ; he ought to have taken 
the Jews through the wilderness in a few days. It was 
cruelty to keep them there, and treachery to borrow on 
false pretences, and to keep the jewels which the Egyptians 
lent them. 

Further sceptical statements shocked his friend ex- 
tremely, so that he “ could hardly sit quiet as he listened.” 
He found it very amazing that Martin could believe in an 
Omnipotent Power and yet deny the divine authority of the 
Old Testament ; also that he could accept the new theory 
that the world was many millions of years older than the 
Bible stated, and that it was first ‘‘ peopled with inferior 
animals, then a grade superior, and finally with man.” 

“This I thought ridiculous enough,’”’ the good fellow 
continues, “‘ but he said he got it all from geology; for 
there were no bones to be found of man, though there were 
the bones of all sorts of other animals.’’ And he concludes 
with charming simplicity: ‘‘I was almost glad to hear 
him silly over something. If he does not think that man 
was created and placed upon earth by a Creator, then I 
pity him.” 

In these days the religious controversies of our Victorian 





His Life and Times 233 


forbears seem a little childish; but the Serjeant-at-law’s 
horror at the great painter’s free-thinking has a certain 
Significance. ‘‘ This is indeed, I feel, an awful subject to 
dwell upon—to approach even,” he says, ‘‘ but when I said 
this to Martin, he asked me—‘ Why? Man is endowed 
with a power of reason and everything is placed before him 
to reason by and with, as facts and arguments. Should 
veneration for his early education make him fear to approach 
his beliefs or religious tenets ? Why should man use one 
kind of logic for religion and a different kind for general 
affairs ?’”’ 

Thus argue our schoolboys to-day. But we realise that 
in John Martin’s day courage was required, not only to 
utter such heterodox opinions, but to form them. He had 
been trained to fear hell-fire like his ancestors. But, in 
everything fearless, John had ‘faced the spectres of his 
mind’ and triumphed over them before he arrived at 
middle years. 

Nevertheless, like the sceptics of our own day, he 
speculated in spiritualistic theories, and Serjeant Thomas 
tells us of a walk he had with Martin during which the 
latter told him of an arrangement he had made with Boniface 
Musso whereby the one who died first should communicate 
with the other. After Musso’s death Martin invoked his 
shade to arise and manifest itself by some sign, such as the 
candle burning blue or the door opening and shutting three 
times ; but no such sign was vouchsafed him, though he 
repeated the invocation often in solitude, at midnight, in 
his closet, in the fields, andona foggy, misty moor. He told 
Thomas that he always put out his left hand in these 





234 John Martin, Painter, 


invocations, ‘‘ wishing to save the one he painted with, 
lest the foul spirit might wither the one he put forth to 
take his departed friend’s hand.’’ By which we may 
learn that Martin seriously believed in the possible material- 
isation of spirits at one time, and prepared himself for revela- 
tion. But his old friend Musso never manifested himself. 

Two other friends of his, according to Leopold, were 
Ralph Watson and Thomas Brickwood, unforgotten names 
of men who harboured progressive ideals in his day and 
were pioneers of educational reform. With them Martin 
was associated in several attempts to organise exhibitions 
of scientific inventions in mid-Victorian years. The first 
was that of the Adelaide Gallery, near Charing Cross, with 
the object of displaying machinery in working action. It 
was constructed in the form of an extensive gallery, down 
the centre of which was a canal for the exhibition of models 
of every description of propelling power. But it failed to 
interest the public, and its chief promoter, Mr. Ralph 
Watson, ‘‘ kind-hearted philanthropist and wealthy man,” 
cut his throat in despair at the failure. 

Fortunately, John Martin had put no money into this 
venture, but he entered undaunted upon a fresh one, known 
as the Panoptican (I have heard my mother speak of it), 
which also came to naught and resulted in a serious loss. 
The third attempt was successful. It was called the 
Polytechnic, and was instituted for the advancement of 
practical science and other branches of industry. “Toa 
certain extent,’’ says Leopold, “it carried out the objects 
Mr. Ralph Watson and my father had at heart.” 

All this should be interesting to Londoners, as evidence 





His Life and Times 235 
of John Martin’s continuous efforts to improve and benefit 
that city. All the while that he was conceiving stupendous 
subjects to paint, he was also conceiving equally stupendous 
schemes of material reform, to say nothing of his minor 
suggestions and inventions, which must have occupied a 
good deal of time. He seems to have been interested in 
almost every conceivable subject, and to have advanced 
ideas on many of them. For instance, we find him advocat- 
ing ‘ fire-proof ships’ to replace our ‘hearts of oak,’ and 
the Channel Tunnel. He must have written hundreds of 
letters on these subjects, of which I venture to quote four. 

The first, written in August, 1830, is addressed to the 
Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, one of his patrons, and 
is an appeal to King William IV. It is written in fine, 
delicate handwriting (not his own or Isabella’s), and signed 
by himself. The postscript is particularly interesting, as 
it is probably Martin’s first appeal for royal support. We 
learn that he memorialised Queen Victoria later. 


“My Lorp DUKE, 

‘“T beg respectfully to offer to your Grace my 
heartfelt thanks for your kindness in procuring for me the 
honour of laying my picture before His Majesty. If I again 
venture to intrude upon your goodness, it is now less as 
soliciting a favour for myself than as entreating the aid of 
your powerful influence towards the promotion of plans, 
which, if carried into effect, will, I feel confident, greatly 
contribute to the practical good, and to the health, the 
comfort, and the ornament of this Metropolis. The plans 
which I have the honour to present I would entreat your 





236 John Martin, Painter, 


Grace to lay before His Majesty as soon as may suit your 
Grace’s convenience. To the whole of these I do not 
expect that His Majesty can have leisure to attend: but 
he may perhaps condescend to command them to be sub- 
mitted to the consideration of competent persons. Two of 
them, however, the plan, namely, for lighting the Eastern 
Coast, and thus preventing the numerous shipwrecks about 
the Goodwins and other sands—and, secondly, the plan for 
supplying London with pure and plentiful water from the 
river Coln—may without much loss of time, be readily 
understood by His Majesty, and their great public im- 
portance will, I hope, justify me in soliciting his brief 
personal consideration of them. 

‘“‘ There are, among the rest, two inventions ; an ‘ elastic 
chain cable,’ and an ‘elastic iron ship,’ which, from His 
Majesty’s knowledge of, and interest in, naval affairs, might 
perhaps interest him—but I cannot venture to hope for 
his attention to so many things. In respect to the plan 
for lighting the sands, I could only entreat that one of the 
proposed lights should be erected, by way of proving the 
possibility of completing the whole. Should it fail, there 
would be but a slight loss of money ; should it succeed, it 
may show the way of saving annually many thousands of 
lives and millions of property. 

“Hoping that your Grace may deem a subject of such 
importance to supply an ample excuse for my again in- 
truding upon your valuable time, I have the honor to be, 
my Lord Duke, 

“Your Grace’s most obedient 
“JOHN MARTIN. 





His Life and Times 237 


“To His Grace, the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, 
ji Cage 
“ P.S.—With renewed thanks to your Grace for your 
condescension in enabling me to lay before His Majesty 
my picture, and I beg very respectfully to add that it is 
my ambition to be deemed worthy of competing for the 
honour of being appointed Historical Painter to their Most 
Gracious Majesties. 1 may, I trust, be excused for saying 
that I received the same honour from Her Royal Highness 
the Princess Charlotte and the Prince Leopold. When I 
add to this that I have been honoured by the notice and by 
the gifts, of their Majesties of Russia, Prussia, and France, 
and that the Academy of Edinburgh has, wholly unsolicited 
by me, or even by my friends, elected me honorary member 
of that Institution, it may, perhaps, gratify your Grace to 
find that, in the approbation which you were pleased to 
bestow upon me some years back, when I was less known, 
you had not wrongly anticipated that other judgments would 
confirm your own.” 


We have seen how His Majesty King William IV. 
treated the picture and the artist, and how abortive the 
appeal proved to be. But the Duke of Buckingham was 
always a good friend to John Martin, and bought many of 
his pictures, including the one now in the Tate Gallery. 
He offered eight hundred guineas for Belshazzar’s Feast. 

The next letters I shall quote are dated twenty years 
later, two years before John Martin’s death. One is from 
Francis Beaufort, of the Admiralty, and the other Martin’s 
reply, a rough copy by himself. 





238 John Martin, Painter, 


“ Admy., Jan. 7th, ’52. 
“ DEAR SIR, 

‘‘T laid your note to me of the roth before their 
lordships and they immediately sent for the plans of the 
fire-proof ship that you ‘submitted to them some years 
ago.’ It has not yet been found in the proper office and I 
would therefore request you to send me the date of that 
communication in order to simplify the search. 
‘“ Yours very truly, 

“FE. BEAUFORT.” 


Martin replies : 


‘““MY DEAR SIR FRANCIS, 

‘| find that I had the honour of showing the plans 
relating to my Floating Harbour Lighthouse, Fire-proof 
Ship, etc., to the Earl of Haddington on April 2oth, 1842, 
and that his lordship, having been interested in one part 
of the design, some considerable correspondence on the 
subject subsequently took place. It may be as well to 
observe that the plan, as it stands, is partly altered and 
improved ; and that I shall be most proud to show the 
drawings and models I have by me to the Honourable 
Lords of the Admiralty, or to any officer they may depute 
to call and report for them. 

‘“T beg to remain, etc., 
“JOHN MARTIN. 
‘“‘ Admiral Sir F. Beaufort.”’ 


The fourth letter is a copy of one addressed to “‘ His 





His Life and Times 239 


Royal Highness Prince Albert, a roughly-written and much- 
corrected copy in Martin’s own handwriting: 


“ Dec., 1852. 

“ SIR, 

“It may be within the recollection of your 
Royal Highness that some time ago I humbly submitted 
to Her Majesty a Memorial on the subject of the imperfect 
operation of the Copyright and Patent Laws, and of the 
injuries I had consequently sustained from the piracy of 
several inventions submitted to the Government and the 
public from time to time during the last 25 years. 

“T respectfully now beg leave to refer again to this 
subject, owing to some recent signal instances in further 
confirmation of the grounds of my complaint, and which 
strongly mark the injurious working of the system, not 
only in its effect upon the interests of the public, but in 
its injustice to the individual. In the years 1829 and 1842 
I published and submitted to the Trinity Board a design 
for a Lighthouse for the (Goodwin ?) Sands, and the plan 
gave rise to a long correspondence, resulting in a promise 
from the Chairman at a Meeting of the Board on June 14th, 
1842, to apply to me when next they fixed a Lighthouse on 
the Sands. The complaint which I now presume to intrude 
on your Highness is that, notwithstanding this promise and 
the evidence in existence, the Trinity Board have since 
erected several Lighthouses on the principle I proposed and 
yet both deny me compensation and evade the recognition 
of my claim to the invention. 

‘ The next case to which I venture to refer, relates to 





240 John Martin, Painter, 


the Board of Admiralty, who, on being informed that I 
had designed certain improvements in ship-building, and 
to the construction of Fire-proof ships, forwarded to me 
an intimation that the Surveyor of the Navy would call 
to inspect my plans. My experience at the Trinity House, 
however, induced me, in my reply, to express my reliance 
on the honour of the Board to recognise my right in the 
invention, should they eventually adopt that plan; but 
this provisional guarantee was instantly declined, and the 
plans have therefore never been inspected. On a more 
recent occasion the Corporation of Liverpool expressed 
their cordial wish to see my plans, but positively declined 
to give a provisional, or any, guarantee not to appropriate 
them. 

“Tt is scarcely for me to pronounce upon the merit of 
my own plans, but if they have been found worth ap- 
propriating, as in the case of the Lighthouse, my right to 
the invention should, in common justice, be duly acknow- 
ledged; and, at all events, your Royal Highness may 
judge of the probable loss to the public from the fact that 
the estimate of an experienced practical engineer for a 
Lighthouse constructed on my principle is only £700, 
whereas the pirated ones cost £7,000, irrespective of the 
important circumstance that my structure can be placed 
in deeper water than is practicable with the other. As 
regards the other inventions I have not risked showing them, 
so that whatever meritorious ideas they may contain are 
quite lost to the public. 

“I have ventured to submit the foregoing statement 
to the consideration of your Royal Highness, as a member 








His Life and Times 241 





of the Trinity Board, in the hope that by directing your 
attention to the operation of the system, the evils com- 
plained of may eventually be remedied, and that, so far as 
I am personally concerned, my injuries may through your 
Royal Highness’s intervention, be recommended for 
redress. 
‘““ With the greatest respect, 

“Your Royal Highness’s most dutiful and 

“most obedient humble servant, 

“ JOHN MARTIN.” 


To this we have not the reply, but the following note of 
acknowledgment from Colonel Phipps in 1850 indicates the 
kind of answer he probably received : 


‘ Osborne, 
“ August 5th, 1850. 
“SIR, 

‘“T have received the commands of His Royal 
ae the Prince Albert to acknowledge the receipt of 
your letter of the 28th ulto, together with the papers which 
accompanied it. His Royal Highness is not aware of any 
means by which he can assist you in the object you may 
have in view from the statement you have forwarded. It 
would be contrary to the invariable practice of His Royal 
Highness to interfere in the claims made upon the Govern- 
ment upon the score of public service of individuals which 
should be decided upon according to their own merits. 
With respect to the Laws of Patent and Copyright, they are 

Q 








242 John Martin, Painter, 


subjects which could only be advantageously considered 
by the Members of Her Majesty’s Government. 
‘‘ T have the honour to be, etc., etc., 
“C: BO PRIPRSS 


That after receiving this curt reply, John Martin 
should have again written to Prince Albert shows his extra- 
ordinary tenacity. He certainly never knew when he was 
beaten ! 

A very long letter addressed to ‘“‘ the Honourable the 
Chairman and the Elder Brothers of the Trinity Board,” 
dated March, 1852, lies also before me, in which he complains 
most bitterly of the treatment he has received, and there 
can be little doubt that he had cause for complaint. In it 
he offers to prove that the design used for certain light- 
houses was his invention, adopted some years after it had 
been rejected by the Board, and that he had made improve- 
ments on it since, which, had he been consulted, would have 
been beneficial. It concludes: ‘‘ I have no hesitation now 
in appealing to your Honourable Board to do me the justice 
which is my due by awarding me compensation for the use 
of an invention which has proved to be so entirely beneficial.”’ 
The technical details given in this letter show how 
much time and thought he must have sacrificed to the 
subject. 


The following letter from the office of Household Words 
is interesting and shows that Martin left no stone unturned 
that could possibly serve public ends. 





His Life and Times 243 


“No. 16, Wellington Street, 
“ North Strand. 
“ August 17th, 1850. 

“MY DEAR SIR, 

“Some delay has arisen in answering your com- 
munication (which Mr. Charles Dickens has desired me to 
apologise for) in consequence of an unusual press of business 
upon us lately. 

“Your pamphlets on sewerage and water supply have 
been placed in the hands of the gentleman who has charge 
of these subjects for Household Words, and, no doubt, 
allusion will be made to them as opportunity offers. The 
memorial in manuscript has been carefully perused and 
notes taken from it of such passages as are of general public 
application. As it may be possible you have no copy of 
it, I enclose it. 

‘* Believe me, etc., etc., 
TW ore Wints!: 

I will conclude with a letter from the Duke of Northum- 
berland concerning the design submitted by Martin to the 
Lifeboat Committee : 


a Lyon, 
“ Nov. 26th, 1851. 
See 
‘“‘T am exceedingly sorry that the model which 
was sent in to the Lifeboat Committee was in an incomplete 
state, and therefore could not be judged so favourably as it 
deserved. The Lifeboat Committee sat for several months 
in examining and trying the models; but when they had 





244. John Martin, Painter 


adjudged the Prize and delivered their Report, their duties 
ceased. As IJ did not consider myself a competent judge 
to decide the question, I left that decision entirely to the 
efficient officers who were kind enough to take on themselves 
that onerous duty, and every letter that was addressed to 
me on the subject I forwarded to the Chairman of that 
Committee. But that Committee has now ceased to exist 
and there is no longer a tribunal to refer to. 

“T can only regret that I cannot suggest a remedy in 
your case. 

“Your obedt. servant, 
‘““ NOKTHUMBERLAND. 
‘John Martin, Esq.” 








His Life and Times 245 


CHAPTER XV 


John Martin’s death in the Isle of Man, 1854. His three last 
pictures, known as the ‘ Judgment’ pictures, left to a 
cousin, Mrs. Wilson. Their exhibition all over the world. 
Press Opinions. Obituary notice in the Observer. Agreement 
with Thomas Maclean for the engraving rights; afterwards 
cancelled. 

THE three last pictures painted by John Martin were The 

Last Judgment, The Great Day of His Wrath, and The Plains 

of Heaven, the last two being called originally The End of 

the World and All Things Made New. He was working on 

The Plains of Heaven up to the time when he departed for 

Douglas, in the Isle of Man, where he had a paralytic 

seizure on December 17th, 1854. 

It is everywhere conceded that these were not equal, 
either in design or execution, to his greatest pictures ; even 
Leopold observes that they do not do his father justice. 
But we know that they were not finished when the artist 
was called away, and they were, at least, sufficiently striking 
to inspire an almost frenzied enthusiasm wherever they 
were shown. 

Leopold tells us that they were painted solely for 
the purpose of being engraved; but this we may doubt. 
Although he had entered into an agreement with Maclean, 
the publisher, for the right to engrave these pictures, and 
to exhibit them for advertising purposes, it is difficult to 





246 John Martin, Painter, 
believe he would have expended so much time and pas- 
sionate energy in painting pictures whose colours would 
not be seen. Had it been the case he would merely have 
drawn them, or engraved them himself. 

Before me lie copies of documents, dated respectively 
June 7th, 1851, and June 23rd, 1852, the agreement between 
‘John Martin of Lindsay House Chelsea in the county 
of Middlesex Professor of Historical Painting of the one 
part and Thomas Maclean of No. 26 Haymarket in the said 
county of Middlesex Publisher and Print-seller of the other 
part,’ in which the latter promises “at his own costs and 
charges to cause or procure to be engraved and executed 
by such artist as the said John Martin shall in writing 
approve, a perfect and correct engraving or lithograph of 
the before mentioned pictures.”’ 

The terms are then stated : 

‘“‘ The copyright of the said engravings shall be the property 
of the said John Martin and Thomas Maclean in the follow- 
ing proportions, that is to say one third of such copyright 
shall be the property of the said John Martin and the 
remaining two thirds shall be the property of the said 
Thomas Maclean, who is to have the right of exhibiting 
the pictures at his own expense at such ‘places and during 
such periods as the said parties shall agree for the purpose 
of obtaining subscribers to the said engravings’; but their 
exhibition for money is only to be by permission of the 
painter, who is to receive the same terms as agreed upon 
with regard to the engravings—one-third of the profits, 
the publisher bearing all incidental expense. He also 
engages to advance John Martin one hundred pounds on 





His Life and Times 247 


each twelve hundred pounds’ worth of each of the engrav- 
ings which shall be ordered or subscribed for, in anticipation 
of the said one third part of the net receipts. Yet John 
Martin is in no case to be personally liable to repay any 
advance made under this clause. | 

There are other clauses by which John Martin is to be 
protected against injury, either to his pocket or his fame ; 
one, notably, which stipulates that, after a certain number 
of impressions shall have been taken off the plates, they 
shall, from time to time, be deposited in a box in the presence 
of both parties, ‘“‘ who shall with their respective seals seal 
up the same, or the said box shall contain two locks, each 
with different wards, the key of one such lock to be kept by 
the said John Martin and the key of the other to be kept 
by the said Thomas Maclean—the box to be deposited 
with some third person—and opened but in the presence 
of each of the said parties or their agents.’ 

There can be no doubt that, whatever were their technical 
defects, these three last pictures of John Martin’s made a. 
wide sensation. They were exhibited all over the world 
for about thirty years (in America, 1857), and afterwards 
shown in a good light at the Alexandra Palace. Since 1900 
they have been hung in the staircase of the Doré Gallery, 
and I suppose it was when that gallery was closed that they 
went into storage. 

‘““Some fifteen years ago,’ writes Mr. Thomas Hunt 
Martin, ‘‘ I was invited to exhibit them in Canada, at the 
great biennial exposition there,’ but he does not say why 
they did not go. It was probably a question of expense. 

He believes that the late Sir Charles Holroyd (Director 








248 John Martin, Painter, 





of the National Gallery) was much inclined to purchase 
these pictures for the nation at one time. But they lie at 
present in a warehouse and have certainly not been seen 
by anyone for twenty years or more. Will no one ever 
resuscitate them and let us see what it was that so dazzled 
our forbears ? 

Leopold tells us that the inspiration for The Last Judg- 
ment and The Day of His Wrath were found by his father 
in the “ Black Country,’’ as he passed through it at night. 
‘ The glow of the furnaces, the red blaze of light, the liquid 
fire,’ he writes, ‘“‘seemed to his mind truly sublime and 
awful. He could not imagine anything more terrible, even 
in the regions of everlasting punishment. All he had 
done, or attempted in ideal painting, fell far short, very 
far short, of the fearful sublimity of effect when the furnaces 
could be seen in full blaze in the depth of night.’’ Milton’s 
infernal regions were linked in his mind with Wolver- 
hampton ! 

But The Plains of Heaven, the third of the triad, was a 
vastly different picture. Lord Lytton called it “ the divine 
intoxication of a soul lapped in majestic and unearthly 
dreams.”’ It was as purely imaginative as the other 
pictures, but over this, his last work, there is to be found 
a beauty and poetry lacking in the other two. 

Shortly after his arrival at Harold Towers, Douglas, 
John Martin was stricken with paralysis, and his old friend, 
Dr. John Elliotson,4 went at once to the Isle of Man to see 


1 Appointed Professor of the Practice of Medicine to the London 
University in 1831. Harvian Orator, 1848. Practised Hypnotism 
and was first to use the stethescope. Author of several medical 
works, 





His Life and Times 249 


him. Isabella was there (she may have gone with her 
father, or have been summoned there later), and we find 
this letter to her from the physician dated February Ist 
in the following year (1854). It throws some light on a 
statement that has appeared here and there to the effect 
that Martin hastened his own end by a rigid abstinence, 
imposed upon himself by some theory he had conceived. 
Being speechless, he was unable to say why he refused 
the nourishment prescribed for him. Dr. Elliotson evidently 
refers to this strange obstinacy of his friend. 


“My DEAR Miss MARTIN, 

“ Your father must be much stronger than he is 
before an attempt can be made, with propriety, to bring 
him home. Should he gain strength he may, of course, 
be brought home. Your letter interests me greatly. Your 
father is a glorious man. One that I admire beyond my 
power of expression. Do entreat him to yield to advice 
in everything ; and do remember me in the very kindest 
manner to him. 

“Yours sincerely, my dear Miss Martin, 
‘‘ JOHN ELLIOTSON.”’ 


Leopold tells us that his father never spoke again; and 
a note in the Observer of February 12th, 1854, under the 
heading of ‘‘ John Martin,’ states that: 

‘“ The last accounts received of the state of this eminent 
artist leave but little hope of his ever resuming his in- 
teresting labours. When we first announced to the public 
the unfortunate attack of paralysis that deprived him of 








250 John Martin, Painter, 





speech and the use of his right hand, hopes were entertained 
of a favourable change, but months have passed away and 
he is still unable to be removed home from the Isle of Man : 
and, to add to the calamity and danger, he has so far lost 
the use of his legs that he cannot, without assistance, 
walk across his room. It is true that his sight, his hearing, 
and mental faculties remain unimpaired as ever, but to a 
man so full of strength, activity, and energy as he has ever 
been, the change is equally sad and fearful. He had 
many commissions on hand, but we fear that his brilliant 
career of genius and industry is closed. Should any change 
take place we shall not fail to give early intimation of 
3 ie 

Twelve days later the painter’s obituary notice appeared 
in the same paper, and above it the editor prints Isabella 
Martin’s simple letter to an old friend of her father’s (pro- 
bably Dr. Ellotson) announcing the event. 


‘““My dear father was taken from us on the 17th inst. at 
half-past six a.m. His end was most tranquil and beauti- 
ful. He passed away without effort or apparent pain 
and was conscious to within an hour of his death. He 
seemed perfectly aware that he was dying but to have no 
fear of death.” 

‘We have scarcely,”’ the editor adds, ‘‘ recovered from 
the excitement caused in the arts by the death of Mallord 
Turner, and the publication of Haydon’s inward thoughts 
and daily adventures, when a genius whose originality of 
conception has astonished all Europe is snatched from us 
in the full strength and maturity of his powers” ; and 


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His Life and Times 251 


then follows a column’s biographical sketch of the painter’s 
career, in the course of which we read : 


“ About a fortnight after his seizure he ceased to take 
food, except in the very smallest quantities, giving his 
attendants the impression that, in so doing, he was acting 
on some principle which he had accepted in his own mind, 
though he had no longer the power to explain the why 
and wherefore. Nothing would induce him to change this 
system of rigid abstinence, and the consequence was that 
nature received an insufficient sustenance from without 
and he gradually sank in strength and spirits. . . . The mind 
of the artist kept its tone and his hand its power to the 
last. He was working on pictures illustrative of the Last 
Judgment to within a few weeks of his death. . . . On these 
large works he had been employed for the past four years— 
on them he may be said to have spent the last efforts of 
his genius. He was painting on the Plains of Heaven 
within an hour of starting for the little island where he 
breathed his last. Of course all these works are left un- 
finished.”’ 

The writer concludes his sketch with the words: 

“Such is our record of the last of three great geniuses 
—Hogarth, Flaxman, and Martin—who have convinced the 
world that, in the fine arts, as in poetry, Englishmen are 
capable of all that is great and beautiful. John Martin 
was painter to King Leopold and other sovereigns on the 
Continent ; yet there is no picture of this great painter 
in our National Gallery now that the public can contemplate 
and admire.”’ , 

That appeared on February 26th, 1854. It holds good 





252 John Martin, Painter, 


to-day ; for though there is one of John Martin’s pictures, 
The Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeu in the Tate 
Gallery, it is neither shown nor mentioned in the catalogue. 
And, in any case, it is not one of Martin’s best pictures 
and cannot fairly represent him. 

In an Isle of Man paper, Mona’s Herald (date unknown), 
there appeared an article signed G. H. W. (G. H. Wood), 
on ‘‘ The Death of John Martin, Esq., K.L., beginning : 

“A mighty spirit—a son of genius—has passed away 
from this earth. Martin, the greatest of British Artists, 
is no more. . . . Any eulogium on his transcendent genius 
would be superfluous. His works praise him and are ap- 
preciated throughout the civilised world. He was a man 
of noble-minded independence of soul, generous and con- 
fiding in his friendships—in his manners dignified yet 
courteous and affable; gifted with eloquence and cap- 
tivating powers of conversation. His annual visits to our 
Druid Isle and ardent admiration of its wild and picturesque 
scenery may well be a subject of honest pride to Manxmen 

. and henceforth the deathless name of Martin, associated 
with that of our lonely Isle—lke the great Napoleon’s 
linked with St. Helena—will invest it with an interest and 
celebrity which will endure to the end of time; and we 
may truly predict that strangers from all parts of Europe, 
landing on these shores, will, like pilgrims journeying to 
some far-famed distant shrine, visit the grave of Martin.” 

Alas for the prophecies of the devout! I wonder how 
many of the holiday-makers who throng the Isle of Man 
every year have even heard the name of John Martin! 

The article ends with a string of rhymed couplets in 





His Life and Times 253 


praise of the painter, written in the same hyperbolical 
strain : 
“*Twas his on bright imagination’s wings 

To speed his flight ’bove all sublimer things, 

Beyond the bounds of time and space to soar 

Where never mortal held his flight before ”’ 
and so forth. This magniloquent elegy was reprinted the 
following year in a four-page sheet advertising the exhibition 
of these pictures in London, after they had been shown in 
the provinces. Here is the announcement : 


JUNE, 1855 
ON VIEW IN THE GREAT HALL OF COMMERCE, 
52, Threadneedle Street 
THE Most SUBLIME AND EXTRAORDINARY PICTURES IN 
THE WORLD 
The Day of Judgment, The Plains of Heaven 
and 
The Great Day of His Wrath 
Valued at eight thousand guineas 
Painted by the 
Late JoHN Martin, K.L., 
(Historical Painter to the King of the Belgians) 
Painter of Belshazzar’s Feast, The Fall of Babylon, The 
Deluge, etc., etc.” 


Following the rhapsody of G.H.W. comes a selection of 
equally fervid quotations from the local press of the towns 
in which the pictures were exhibited—Oxford, Birmingham, 
Leicester, Bristol, Chester, and others. 


‘“‘ An opportunity is here afforded the public,” says the 





254 John Martin, Painter, 


Oxford Journal, ‘‘ of viewing three of the most magnificent 
paintings which have, perhaps, ever been submitted to the 
notice of lovers of the fine arts . . . these superb works of 
art are the production of the late distinguished Mr. John 
Martin, whose Belshazzar’s Feast, The Deluge, The Destroying 
Angel and others have already secured him an unrivalled 
and lasting fame.” 

The Birmingham Mercury follows with : 

“Among the many mighty spirits that England has 
produced, none have surpassed the transcendent genius of 
John Martin. Not only has he immortalised himself by 
the perfection to which he has attained as an artist, but he 
has gained an everlasting renown by the grandeur and 
sublimity of his poetic conceptions.” 

Here the writer gives a graphic description of the pic- 
tures, the closing paragraphs of which I may perhaps be 
forgiven for quoting, since the record gives the vivid im- 
pression made upon a lay mind by the painting. 

“Beneath the whelming crowd of worlds . . . may be 
seen myriads of demon shapes writhing in unutterable woe, 
as they are swept towards the dark fathomless gulf which 
yawns before them. A degree of anguish is portrayed 
upon their countenances which none but a master mind could 
have conceived. Down they rush into the bottomless pit 
amid the wreck of a tottering, crumbling, and sinking 
universe. But, turning from this fearful convulsion, we 
behold all the lovely and enchanting scenes of spirit-land, 
or, asthe Poet-Painter termed it, an ideal picture of the 
Plains of Heaven. 

“This plain, as seen through a glass, seems illimitable 


796 a 


“NHAVHH HO SNIVTId HHL 











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His Life and Times 255 


and infinite ; it is bounded in the far distant horizon by a 
faint, shadowy stretch of the new Jerusalem—not a mere 
earthy structure, but a vast ideal city, immaterial and 
undefined. 

“Such is but an inadequate description of three of the 
grandest pictures that have ever been produced. With an 
imagination soaring far into the Unknown, and giving such 
an embodiment to his wild and luxuriant dreams, Martin 
has reached a pinnacle to which none but the most daring 
may aspire, and has raised himself to an equality with the 
Dantes, the Miltons, the Goethes, and Baileys of all ages 
and climes.” 

The Birmingham Journal follows suit : 

“In the millennium of art, which, possibly, the next 
generation may see, when it will be recognised as the duty 
of the State to purchase, for national use, the great produc- 
tion of sculptor and painter, a collection of John Martin’s 
works may probably be made. Scattered,.as they now 
are, over the chief private galleries of Europe, we would 
advise our readers not to miss this opportunity of seeing 
together three of the finest pictures of the most original 
genius of our time. ... He saw all things through his 
own medium. . . . Hecut for himself a lonely and dangerous 
path, in which he had no predecessor.” 

The Bristol Mirror says of The Plains of Heaven: 

“In this picture there are several touches of beauty 
quite equal, if not superior, to Claude or Turner.” 

Here the time of exhibition had to be extended, owing 
to the crowd of visitors; as we learn from the Bristol 
Gazette : 





256 John Martin, Painter, 


“Hundreds of persons are daily paying the rooms a 
visit, and the excitement is as strong as ever; everyone 
being delighted with a sight of these sublime works.” 

From the Lezcester Mercury we read that “ there are 
now on view at the Town Hall three magnificent works of 
art ... the productions of that extraordinary genius, 
the late Mr. John Martin, whose mighty talents have earned 
for him the title of Prince of Painters.’’ And from another 
Leicester journalist we have the confession that “ they are 
the most extraordinary and sublime works we have ever 
seen—a vast poem, wonderfully conceived.”’ 

Without giving the provincial journalist too much credit 
for critical acumen in the matter of art, we may reasonably 
suppose that the men chosen to write these articles in the 
leading papers of our larger towns had some understanding 
of their subject. In the art galleries of Birmingham, 
Bristol, Leicester, etc., good pictures were exhibited from 
time to time. But that no such pictures as these of John 
Martin’s had been seen in them is sufficiently obvious. The 
impression of remarkable genius made by them on these 
unbiassed critics is plain. Whatever technical flaws were 
visible to the initiated in art, there was no doubt in the 
mind_of the-ordinary-man that they had been painted by 
one who must be an immortal. 

At the end of the circular we find the advertisement of 
engravings of the pictures at the following prices: 


Artist Proofs .. 00) £ ee 
Proofs before Letters .. {10 I0 
Letter proofs .. -. horas 


The Day of Judgment 
Prints se -) en 


His Life and Times 257 


The other two pictures being priced at ten, seven, four 
and three guineas respectively. Orders were to be sent 
to Messrs. Leggatt, Hayward, and Leggatt, of 79, Cornhill, 
London. 

There is no information forthcoming as to why the 
engravings were the property of Messrs Leggatt, and not 
Mr. Thomas Maclean, according to the agreement quoted. 
That agreement must have been cancelled, if it were ever 
signed. Perhaps John Martin’s death prevented his signing it. 

We have no means of ascertaining the amount of money 
realised by the sale of these engravings, but it must have 
been considerable. Thousands and tens of thousands of 
the prints must have been sold, not only in England but 
abroad. What has become of them all? I remember 
seeing them here and there in old-fashioned houses, but 
not lately. Yet they must lie somewhere, for people do not 
often destroy pictures. And in addition to these legitimate 
engravings there must have been many thousands of 
pirated copies, such as the dreadful print of The Day of 
His Wrath in my possession. Where are they ? 





258 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER XVI 


The family of John Martin. Connections with Sir John Tenniel, 
Sir Frederick Bridge, Allan Cunningham, Joseph Bonomi and 
Henry Fielding. Charles Martin, the portrait painter. John 
Martin’s home at Chelsea. The fresco on the wall. Sale of 
stained glass windows painted by him. His grave at Kirk 
Braddan, Isle of Man. 

JOHN MARTIN left three sons and three daughters, five of 

whom were married. His wife survived him by only four 

years, dying in December, 1858. Isabella Mary, his eldest 
daughter, never married, although, I am told, she inherited 

her father’s good looks, and her portrait appeared in a 

‘Book of Beauty’ as one of the beauties of London. If 

this portrait is the one I have seen, now in the possession 

of Colonel Bonomi, I can believe this, though it is the kind 
of beauty that has lost its appeal to-day. From all accounts 
she must have been an exceptional character—as clever, 
good, and lovable as she was handsome. Leopold declares 
that she was unmarried, ‘‘ not from lack of opportunity, 
but from absolute love for her father, to whom she was 
devoted.” He calls her a ‘‘great-hearted, loving, and 
affectionate sister and daughter,’ and all her life shows 
her possessed by the spirit of self-sacrifice ; for after her 
mother’s death she went to live with her youngest sister, 

Jessie, and at that sister’s death took entire charge of her 

children. 





ISABELLA MARY MARTIN. 
John Martin's Eldest Daughter. 


pp. 258 





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His Life and Times 259 


Madame de Cosson, her niece, writes of her thus: “I 
wish I could tell you how splendid, and how clever, my Aunt 
Isabella was, and what a devoted mother to us all; how 
she helped my father when he was Curator of Sir John 
Soane’s Museum. She managed all the business part of 
this, as well as helping my father with his literary work.”’ 
Isabella died in 18709. 

Zenobia, second daughter of John Martin, married in 
1842, Peter Cunningham, son of the famous Allan Cunning- 
ham and himself a man of letters well known in his time. 
His son, Mr. W. A. Cunningham, informs me that he was 
for years on the staff of the Illustrated London News, con- 
tributing a weekly article headed ‘‘ Town and Table Talk 
on Literature and Art,’’ and was succeeded by George 
Augustus Sala. He was a friend of Charles Dickens, who 
presented him with a complete edition of his works. I 
believe Zenobia was considered a handsome woman; all 
the Martins must have been good-looking, unless report 
errs. She had three children, one of whom is my cor- 
respondent. 

_ The youngest daughter, Jessie, married the renowned 
antiquarian and Egyptologist, Joseph Bonomi, whose 
brother Ignatius married Henry Fielding’s daughter. Joseph 
Bonomi was Curator at the Soane Museum for many years, 
assisted, as we have seen, by his sister-in-law, Isabella. 
Jessie married very young; her life was short and tragic, 
for she lost her first four children in one week from whooping- 
cough, and after bearing four more, died when the last 
was born, at the age of thirty-four. Her sixth child, Cecilia, 
married the Baron de Cosson, who is an expert on old 





260 John Martin, Painter, 





armour, and said to possess one of the finest collections in 
Europe. Her eldest son has lately retired from the Egyptian 
Service, in which he has held important Government posts. 

Her brother, Colonel Joseph Ignatius Bonomi, C.B.E., 
late King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, commanded a 
training battalion of that regiment during the first three 
years of the war, and was in charge of an American rest 
camp for the last year. He is in possession of a drawing 
by John Martin of the Thames Embankment as visualised 
by the artist in his scheme,! and four water-colour land- 
scapes; as well as the Sévres china presented by King 
Louis Philippe and the cabinet John Martin made to hold 
all his medals and gifts of honour. Colonel Bonomi has 
also the miniature and oil-painting of his grandfather to 
which I have referred, the original etching of Belshazzar’s 
Feast, and other treasures. 

John Martin’s eldest son, Alfred, married, but I cannot 
give the name of his wife, as the family appears to have 
forgotten it. He had sons and grandsons, but I have not 
been able to learn anything about them or come into touch 
with them. Alfred held a good appointment in the Irish 
post office. 

The second son, Leopold Charles, from whose memoir 
I have quoted so much here, was the godson of Leopold I., 
King of the Belgians, and married the sister of Sir John 





1 It is inscribed: ‘‘ Design for Embankment submitted to the 
House of Commons, 1838. Dedicated to Alderman Sir Matthew 
Wood, Bart., M.P., and the Honourable Members for the Committee 
for the Improvement of London, Aug. 1, 1835.” 

2 Leopold says he was General Superintendent of Income Tax 
in Ireland and held this post at the time of his death in 1872. 





His Life and Times 261 
Tenniel in 1844 (I think, but exact dates have not been 
kept). He was the author of several books on costume, 
coins, etc., and held, he says, for thirty-six years an ap- 
pointment under the Crown, the gift of Lord Melbourne, 
when Prime Minister. Leopold had six children, of whom 
three daughters are stillliving. The eldest, John, who married 
a Miss Bridge, a connection of Sir Frederick Bridge. Marian, 
who married Dr. King, of Ambleside ; Eva, who married 
another King; and Julia, the youngest (unmarried) are 
living ; Hyde, Isabella, and Annie (who married Mr. W. H. 
Rylands) are dead. I am told that Annie inherited her 
grandfather’s gift, and painted beautifully. 
The third son, Charles, was an artist of some distinction, 
a well-known portrait-painter in his day. He married 
Mary Anne Wilson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas 
Wilson, of Harold Towers, Douglas, and lived for some 
years in that town, but went to America later and made his 
name there by painting many famous persons—Washington 
Irving, N. P. Willis, Longfellow, and others, including the 
widow of Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of State to George 
Washington, an interesting woman. In England he painted 
Lord Lyndhurst, Dickens, Bulwer Lytton, Disraeli, etc., 
and contributed a number of portrait sketches to the early 
numbers of the Jllustvated London News. An excellent 
likeness of Harrison Ainsworth by him appeared in the 
Pictorial Times of July, 1844, with an account of the novelist 
by Hugh Cunningham ; and Charles also executed a very 
fine portrait in chalk of his father on his death-bed, which 
hangs now in the Newcastle Corporation Art Gallery. It 
was exhibited at the Royal Academy. Mr. Thomas Hunt 





262 John Martin, Painter, 


Martin is the only son and only child of Charles Martin. He 
went several times to America with his father. 

Death came so suddenly to John Martin that he died 
without making a will; or, at all events, his will has not 
been entered at Somerset House. But his grandson, Mr. 
Thomas Hunt Martin, assures me that the three last ‘ Judg- 
ment’ pictures were left by the artist to Mrs. Wilson, whose 
daughter, Mary Anne, married Charles Martin. Perhaps 
the pictures were a gift. John Martin was staying at Harold 
Towers when his last illness put an end to work, and he may 
have presented those pictures to his hostess in gratitude and 
compunction for the trouble he was causing. Mr. T. H. 
Martin had, he tells me, a certain interest in them, which 
he afterwards disposed of. When they had been shown in 
Europe and America for thirty years, he says, they had to 
be stored, and their enormous size made the charges so 
heavy that he could not afford to pay his share. He 
believes they are now stored in a cellar off Tottenham Court 
Road. 

We hear that John Martin was painting on The Plains 
of Heaven a few hours before he started for Douglas. There 
is a legend that he painted the three last pictures there, 
but this is not true. I have heard another legend, that his 
brain was taken out and weighed by some learned society, 
and that he was laid out in state, with a jewel on his breast 
(possibly the Order of Leopold), but I have not been able 
to verify these stories. 

So far as we know, he never went out of England. The 
furthest journey he appears to have taken was to the Isle 
of Man. It is strange that he did not visit at least those 





His Life and Times 263 


galleries in France and Belgium at which his pictures were 
exhibited. But he was a true John Bull, a great lover of 
his own country, and cared little for any other. Travelling 
was not easy or cheap in his day, as it is now, and he had 
little time to spare for slow journeys by train and diligence 
in foreign parts. We have seen how his money melted 
away in the hands of friends and relations, and in the 
various schemes to which he lent it. So it is not very 
surprising that he spent none on travelling abroad and 
left his widow and unmarried daughter only sufficient money 
to keep them in comfort. 

Some friends of mine who owned two small landscapes 
by Martin, wished to dispose of them, but before sending 
them to Christie’s, wrote to his widow asking if she would 
like to buy them. The reply was that she could not afford 
to do so. They made £50 each in the sale. That was 
about fifty years ago. 

(By the way, since I began this work I have had the 
offer of two steel engravings, The Great Day of His Wrath 
and The Plains of Heaven, in English gold frames, for 
the sum of £55, which seems a pretty good price for 
prints !) 

I am informed by one of his descendants that John 
Martin’s family came of Welsh stock originally, and another 
assures me that the family hails from Long Melford, in 
Suffolk, where their brasses may still be seen in the Martyr’s 
Chapel of the chruch. The latter correspondent says that 
in a privately-printed account of Long Melford by Admiral 
Hyde Parker, one of these Martins is stated to have been 
Lord Mayor of London in the sixteenth century. Whether 


264 John Martin, Painter, 

either of these claims can be substantiated or not I am 
unable to say. But the statement made by Leopold that 
his grandmother boasted uninterrupted descent from Bishop 
Ridley, the martyr,' is confirmed by Colonel Bonomi, who 
believes it to be true. He has a very distinct recollection 
that, when he was quitea youth, there wasin the possession 
of his aunt, Isabella Martin, a large genealogical chart setting 
forth the descent of the Martin family from the fifteenth 
century. But it does not matter whether John Martin 
was descended from bishops, mayors, or tinkers. He 
requires no ancestral glory, being himself so greatly dis- 
tinguished from the mass of men. Descent from him may 
well be a matter of pride to his family; they need not - 
seek any further. We know, at least, that John Martin 
made no claim to be a Welsh or Sussex man, but declared 
himself always a loyal Northumbrian. 

There is a tablet on his father’s cottage at Haydon 
Bridge, I am told, but no such mark distinguishes Lindsay 
House, Chelsea, where he lived from 1848. This old house 
on the Thames Embankment was built in the reign of 
James I. and bought by the Earl of Lindsay. It was after- 
wards in the possession of the Brunels, father and son, and 
later occupied by Bramah, inventor of the hydraulic press, 
etc. So it has a certain history apart from its connection 
with John Martin. 

Leopold tells us that his father painted a landscape in 
fresco on the high wall of the back garden, very effective 
when seen through the doors upon entering the house. It 
resisted the weather and retained its pure colour, he says, 


1 See Chapter III. 





His Life and Times 265 


until the owner of the premises on the other side of the wall 
piled heaps of refuse against it and the moisture, percolating, 
spoilt the fresco. It was, however, still extant and ‘ attrac- 
tive’ when Leopold wrote in 1889, and may be visible 
still. 

I hear from a lady who lived next door as a child that 
the colours were quite fresh when she left in 1870, and 
that her father used to say John Martin intended it for 
a landscape of a spot ‘“‘ where man had never trod.’’ My 
correspondent well remembers a great excitement one 
morning, when a number of men on horseback were before 
the house and the Prince Consort was calling on John 
Martin, who received him in his dressing-gown and slippers. 
It is not etiquette to keep royalty waiting, and this fact 
was impressed on her infant mind so vividly that she never 
forgot it. 

There are several legends about Martin’s mode of work ; 
how he would lock himself in his studio and make his first 
sketches on the floor; how, when trying to conceive the 
effect of tumbling rocks in The Deluge picture, he was 
tearing his hair impotently, until the sound of coal being 
shot into his cellar suggested a bright idea. He had it 
thrown into his studio and painted his great rocks from it ! 
There are many other traditions, too many to set down 
here. But they show him to have been a man of surprises, 
not only to the world at large, but to his own family and 
intimate friends. 

I have seen a copy from an interesting sale bill stating 
that : 





2606 John Martin, Painter, 


‘‘ Four small windows of stained glass 
by J. Martin 
will be sold by auction, by 
Messrs. Christie & Manson 
at their Great Room, 8, King Street, St. James’s Square, 
on Tuesday, June the 6th, 1848. 


Martin. 122 Three subjects, painted on glass, burnt in. 

123 The Companion Window. 

124 A stained window in nine compartments, the 
centre by Martin. 

125 The Companion Window.” 


Of the same date (1848) there is an account of the Duke 
of Buckingham’s sale of pictures, at which Martin’s The 
Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum was bought at the 
price of £800 (I believe that a Reynolds was sold at the 
same time for £80!) This is the picture now at the Tate 
Gallery, and formerly in the National Gallery, after being 
for a long time in the Manchester Art Gallery. It has not 
been shown for many years, and is in a disgracefully neg- 
lected condition. Although by no means one of Martin’s 
best pictures, it is very impressive, and gives an idea of 
the artist’s power ; especially that remarkable power for 
which he was noted, of conveying a sense of vast space 
and distance to the mind. The frame is inscribed in large 
gold lettering, ‘793 The Destruction of Pompeii by John 
Martin. B. 1789. D. 1854. English School.” But that 
‘English School’ is obviously considered of no account 
to-day ! 

John Martin lies in the picturesque churchyard of Kirk 


His Life and Times 267 


Braddan, of which Harrison Ainsworth wrote in 1825: 
“ Took a nag horse and rode to Kirk Braddan Church— 
beautifully situated, embosomed in trees, built of grey 
stone with a singular, antique steeple.’’! There are no 
pilgrimages to this grave, as so confidently prophesied by 
his admirers in 1854, and it would probably be hard to find 
his headstone to-day. But if I be not another of those 
deluded prophets, that lonely and neglected grave will 
not always remain so. 


1 Life of Harvison Ainsworth, by S. M. Ellis. 





268 John Martin, Painter, 


CHAPTER XVII 


What is to be the future verdict on John Martin’s work ? Some 
Verdicts of the past and present. Were the art critics of 
his day all ignorant and deluded ? Heine’s comparison of 
him with Berlioz. Articles in The Library of Fine Aris, 1833, 
and The Artist, 1901. Summing-up and last words. 

SINCE the death of John Martinin 1854, there has been, at 
least, one gallant attempt to rescue his name from the 
oblivion into which it has undeservedly fallen, and it is 
but fair to acknowledge here the stimulus my work has 
received from the enthusiasm of an artist and critic who 
believes that a day must come when Martin will take his 
place among the immortals. He is not the only one who 
has written to me—“ a life of Martin is long over-due and 
should be written,’’ but he is, so far as I know, the only 
man of our day to come forward boldly as champion of the 
forgotten painter, to challenge his adverse critics and stoutly 
maintain his right to be enrolled on the list of British artists 
who have shown exceptional power and originality. 

This doughty champion is Mr. E. Wake Cook, the well- 
‘known painter and art critic, “author of Anarchism in Art, 
etc. He first thrust a lance on Martin’s behalf-at.the time 
of Queen Victoria’s death, when a letter from him to the 
Times, a column long, was published in the funeral number 
of that paper, advocating Martin’s claim to distinction. 
This met with a sympathetic response all over England. 





His Life and Times 269 


Mr. Cook received a large number of letters, and among 
them an invitation from the editor of The Artist for an 
article on John Martin. The Artist was at that time in its 
prime. It set forth to be “ an illustrated monthly record of 
arts, crafts, and industries, and the authorised official 
medium of the art schools of England and the Society of 
Designers.’’ It was published in London, Paris, and New 
York. The article duly appeared, fully illustrated, and 
seemed at first likely to produce some effect. But the seed 
Was sown in stony ground and died down without ap- 
parently rousing any practical interest. Who shall say, 
however, that it is not, even now, germinating ? 

When the once-famous pictures, Belshazzar’s Feast and 
Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still, came into the 
market recently, Mr. Cook wrote to the directors of the 
National Gallery offering to buy them (if possible) and 
present them to the nation, on condition that they should 
be shown to the public. His offer was not accepted. The 
reason urged was that they would take up too much room. 
They are indeed large pictures. Belshazzar’s Feast is 624 in. 
by 98 in., and Joshua 58 in. by 88 in. Butis their size much 
greater than others exhibited in our national galleries, 
whose claim to such honour rests on authority perhaps more 
questionable than that once afforded to John Martin ? 

Mr. Cook’s contention is, briefly, that John Martin 
represents a creative type of artist of whom we have only 
too few in our country. In his article in The Artist, after 
describing him as “ the Dante of painting, who shared with 
Turner the honour of having made the greatest advance 
in that art the world had ever seen,” he continues: 


270 John Martin, Painter, 


“Of our many contributions to art, none are so great, 
so original, or so peculiarly English as those of these great 
idealists. The need of the new century is for giants like 
Martin to save us from the reactionary influences which 
are degrading art to the hoardings and to turn us from the 
cult of the eccentric to central progress ; men who will dare 
difficulties, or Titanic labours, to wrest from Nature new 
possibilities of art. 

“The dominant art of the future will, I believe, be a 
higher form of creative Idealism. ... On the plane of 
Realism we are imitators, selectors, interpreters, what you 
will; but we are not creators. The painter’s quest is 
always for an ideal beauty he never finds. Then why not 
boldly create, with a musician’s freedom? The poetic 
seers of all ages have created ideal works, and the demiurgic 
mantle fell on two great Englishmen—John Martin first, 
and then on Turner. Martin was a veritable Titan, who 
gave us thunderous epics, apocalyptic visions of appalling 
splendour and stupendous dramas of man and the elements, 
such as were never dreamt of in the wide world before they 
flashed from his colossal imagination. Turner, inspired by 
this fiery genius, but keeping in closer touch with nature, 
and with finer art, created new worlds of light and beauty.”’ 

Further on Mr. Wake Cook protests strongly and 
bravely against his country’s neglect of Martin. ‘‘ Turner,” 
he says, “has the grandest of all of monuments in the 
poetic prose of John Ruskin, who lavished laudation on his 
idol’s faults and beauties alike, but had only a contemptuous 
word for Martin. The same unfairness is shown by all; 
Turner’s works are everywhere in evidence, Martin’s might 





His Life and Times 271 


be non-existent. None have been shown in the winter 
exhibition of the Royal Academy and none at the Guild 
Hall ; while he is only misrepresented at South Kensington. 
This unequal distribution of honours is as remarkable as it 
is discreditable, because no artist can deny the originality 
of Martin’s works, or their imaginative and dramatic 
power.”’ 

John Martin’s position remains as it was when the 
above ‘‘ plea for justice ’’ was written. His work is still un- 
represented in our galleries,! it is scattered far and wide, 
nobody knows where ; his name is unknown to the majority 
of his countrymen ; and yet in his day he was reckoned a 
great man and Mr. Wake Cook does not stand alone in 
ranking him with our greatest British landscape painter, 
Turner. I have already called attention to the statement 
in Chambers’ Encyclopedia that ‘‘ for twenty-seven years 
the suffrages of the public were divided between John 


, 


‘Martin and Turner,” and in art criticism as late as 1849, 
when his fame is said to have been on the decline, we see 
his work still ranked with that of Ruskin’s idol. 

In the Illustrated London News of that year, dated 
February 24th, referring to Richard Wilson and Gains- 
borough as having established the English school of land- 
scape painting, an anonymous critic writes: 

‘“‘ Since then we have produced Mr. J. M. W. Turner and 
Mr. John Martin (the most imaginative of the school).”’ 

And Richard Redgrave, R.A., in A Century of Painters 
of the English School, affirms that ‘‘ Martin is an artist so 
thoroughly original that he opened up a new view which, 


1 The one in the Tate Gallery not shown. 





272 John Martin, Painter, 


in his hands, yielded glimpses of sublime dreams and visions 
that art had not hitherto displayed.” 

Even when, as in the case of Hazlitt and Charles Lamb, 
Martin’s work is unfavourably criticised, there is obviously 
no question raised as to his high rank as an artist. Although 
Lamb held him up as an example of a particular school of 
art to which he objected, he did not grudge him such a 
title of honour as ‘“‘ this mighty artist’; nor did Hazlitt 
disdain to write at great length about him, but bestowed 
a reluctant meed of praise upon Martin’s “ very singular 
and, in some things, very meritorious pictures.’ 1 That 
he recognised Martin as an original genius is obvious from 
the context in which the above appears; and it is equally 
obvious that a pretty lively controversy raged about him 
at this period. 

A critic in the Edinburgh Review observed that “ the 
interest excited in the British public by Belshazzar’s Feast 
and others of Mr. Martin’s works is such as, we believe, 
never before was awakened by those of any other painter. 
It is true that, by a certain class of critics, he has been 
charged with considerable faults, but though we admit the 
justness of their censures, it must be evident that for the 
production of an admiration so enthusiastic in the greater 
number, including many equally competent to judge aright, 
he must be allowed the possession of excellencies of a very 
high, if not, indeed, of the highest class. That which chiefly 
distinguishes Mr. Martin from other artists is his power of 
depicting the vast, the magnificent, the terrible, the brilliant, 
the obscure, the supernatural, and the beautiful. .. . 


1 Hazlitt’s Works, vol. vi., p. 39. 





His Life and Times 273 


“No painter has ever, like Martin, represented the 
immensity of space—none like him has spread forth the 
boundless valley, or piled mountains to the sky—none like 
him made light pour down in dazzling floods from heaven, 
and none like him painted the darkness visible of infernal 
deeps. With our feelings warmed and our imaginations 
- expanded by such subjects, they excite in us emotions of a 
nature far nobler than those with which we contemplate 
the utmost perfection of mechanical skill.” 1 

The Victorians loved to exercise a grandiloquence that 
raises a smile to-day, and the confused wandering of their 
journalists in prose seems to us forced and affected. But 
it is easy to read through such misty verbiage as the above 
a very real and dazzled admiration. There must have 
been a magic in the art of John Martin that thrilled the 
nerves and stirred the emotions of the impressionable, even 
when they most desired to view him witha critical eye, to 
see the flaws pointed out by colder judges. To the religious, 
naturally, his pictures made a profound appeal; but it 
was not to the religious only that his work was significant 
and impressive. 

Professor Waagen, Director of the Royal Academy at 
Berlin, wrote of him : | 

“IT know now, and perfectly understand, the extra- 
ordinary approbation which Martin’s pictures have met 
with in England, for they unite, in a high degree, the three 
great qualities which the British require above all in works 
of art—effect, a fanciful invention, inclining to melancholy, 
and topographic, historical truth. In no work of art that 


1 See also Appendix. 





274 John Martin, Painter, 


I have ever seen is the contrast between the modern and 
antique way of conception of the arts so striking as in 
these.”’ 

Writing to Sir George Beaumont about the picture 
which had electrified London, Belshazzar’s Feast, David 
Wilkie expressed his admiration as follows : 

‘““Martin’s picture is a phenomenon. All that he has 
attempted in his former pictures is here brought to maturity. 
Belshazzar’s feast is the subject; his great element the 
geometrical proportions of space, magnitude, and numbers, 
in the use of which he may be said to be boundless. The 
contrivance and display of the architecture is full of 
imagination.” 

Heine compared his art with the music of Berlioz, 


ce 


which, he said, suggested rather ‘‘ the stupendous passions 
of the early world”’ than any known form of classic or 
romantic art. 

“We find elective affinity allied to the most perfect 
resemblance between Berlioz and the wild Briton. In the 
one are startling effects of light and shade, in the other a 
crash and clang of instruments; the latter with little 
melody, and the former almost without colour. In either 
little beauty and no tender natural feeling whatever.” He 
adds: “And what a common-sense, every-day, modern 
man beside these two madmen of genius ( hoy: de génte) is 
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy!”’ 1 

The German obviously detected something untamable 
in the “ wild Briton,’ differentiating him from all other 
artists of his time; and, being a rebel against convention 





1 Vol. iv., p. 406. Leland’s Translation. 





His Life and Times 275 


himself, offered him, with Berlioz, the homage one free 
spirit feels for another. For nobody can deny the fact 
that Martin was a free spirit, working as his will listed, in 
the medium he had made his own, and challenging the world 
fearlessly. He was nothing if not a great adventurer in art. 

I believe I have already quoted the French critic Charles 
Blanc, who, in his work on painting, said : 

““ Martin a fait parler de lui dans toute l’Europe, et c’est, 
peutétre, de tous les peintres anglais, celui qui fut le plus 
renounné sur le continent. En Angleterre, aussi, un 
moment, il semble étre un des plus grands génies de l’art 
Britannique et Bulwer s’est hasardé jusqu’a écrire que 
Martin etait plus original, plus sot-méme (self-dependent) 
que Raphael and que Michael-Ange. C’est, dit-il, le plus 
sublime, le plus durable d’entre les génies de notre siécle.”’ 

This impression he created of imaginative power, is 
again expressed in Christopher North’s Noctes Ambrosianee, 
where he puts into the mouth of his ‘“‘ Shepherd’ (James 
Hogg) the words: ‘ That Martin, to my fancy, is the 
greatest painter o’ them a’ and has a maist magnificent 
imagination.”’ 

But it would be a grave error to conclude that John 
Martin’s technical skill was always unequal to the demands 
made upon it by his exuberant fancy and unbounded 
ambition. I am assured by those who can offer an expert 
opinion, that his drawing was, as arule, extraordinarily fine. 
Writing of Belshazzar’s Feast, one says: ‘It is luminous, 
and the figures beautifully drawn and painted, much better 
than Turner’s. .. . The things on the banquetting table 
are exquisitely finished. Martin is unique in uniting the 





276 John Martin, Painter, 


most powerful effects and vastness of subject with most 
minute and delicate finish. One of his most wonderful 
works is The Repentance of Nineveh, It is the fullest as 
regards subject matter, yet as broad and simple as the 
slightest sketch—a triumph of art. It has a myriad figures, 
many so small as to need a magnifying glass, yet they are 
full of life and action.” 

I find all this true of a little sepia drawing of Martin’s 
that I have the happiness to possess. It is the scene in 
Ivanhoe where Rebecca on the Tower of Torquilstone Castle, 
defies the Templar, and was evidently done for an illustra- 
tion to some Annual, as the text is written beneath in 
Isabella Martin’s fine handwriting. The two central figures 
are full of spirit ; a tree in the middle distance so perfectly 
drawn that it is instantly recognisable as an oak, and the 
fighting men outside the castle are clearly to be seen, 
although but tiny dots. It is altogether a very dainty 
little work of art; but its distance from The Deluge and 
other works of John Martin is so great that it seems almost 
impossible he could have painted them both ! 

The stern professional critic will tell you to-day that 
when any work of art commands immediate admiration 
from the impressionable crowd of men, its real merits are 
doubtful. It is unlikely to be inspired by genius and 
executed with perfect art, but is rather the production of 
a superficial talent and meretricious skill. The truly great 
artist, he will say, is rarely, if ever, recognised at first by 
the larger public, which must be trained and led “ to know 
the highest when they see it.’” And there is undeniable 
truth in this statement. But it is also true that the popular 


=a 


His Life and Times 277 


verdict has occasionally been the right one, endorsed by 
posterity, when the critics of a later date have poured the 
vials of ridicule upon their predecessors. And it is possible 
this may be the case with Martin. 

We know that a man may be greatly inspired and yet 
_not a supreme artist; may be gifted with unlimited con- 
ceptive and creative power yet lack a certain discriminative 
quality necessary to the achievement of finished art. 
Without the instinctive knowledge of what to take and 
what to leave of the material from which a work of art is 
built, the artist wavers and his work suffers. It may be 
that John Martin was somewhat lacking in this instinctive 
knowledge. We know that, in his passion for expression, 
he flung upon the canvas everything that took shape in 
his superlatively fecund imagination, with almost frenzied 
energy, and perhaps he did not give himself time to sift 
values and choose the exactly right medium of expression 
from all possible ones. If only there were not fifty ways 
of painting, or saying, the same thing, and only one perfect ! 


But the idea was, I certainly believe, more to him than the ‘ 


perfection of its presentment. And on such a powerfully ~ 
creative mind time presses heavily. He had so much to 
say, so little time to say it in! Life was too short for 
him ever to execute in art all the glorious visions that 
haunted him. When this occurs the critical faculty has 
little space to work in. 

And, moreover, Martin was piteously hampered, at the 
outset of his career, by lack of technicalinstruction and the 
grim necessity of making enough money to keep himself 
and a growing family. He was hampered even more by 





278 John Martin, Painter, 


his too wide interest in matters outside the sphere of art. 
The time and effort he wasted on schemes for the improve- 
ment of London and other matters must ever be regretted. 

But he needs no apology for any shortcomings the 
captious critic may find in his art. Whatever those short- 
comings, he stands, a profoundly impressive figure, among 
the giants of the Victorian age. And whatever rank may 
be assigned to him in the future—whether the highest, as 
in his own day, or that of a mere “ phenomenon,’ a splendid 
meteor dazzling the minds of his generation—he was an 
Englishman of whom we should be proud. It will be an 
eternal disgrace to us as a nation if his pictures are allowed 
to remain in obscurity, his name forgotten. Lesser men 
are honoured in our archives and represented fairly in our 
galleries. 

Why not John Martin ? 





His Life and Times 279 


LIST OF WORKS BY JOHN MARTIN 
SUBJECT PICTURES 


Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion. Royal Academy, 
1812. 

Adam's First Sight of Eve. Royal Academy, 1813. 

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise. British 
Institution, 1813. 

Clytie. Royal Academy, 1814; British Institution, 1815. 

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. British Institution, 1814. 

Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still. Royal Academy, 
1816; British Institution, 1817, and again in 1849. 
Exhibited in the International Exhibition, 1862. Size 
58 in. by 88 in. 

The Bard. Royal Academy, 1817; British Institution, 
1818, 

The Hermit. British Institution, 1818. 

The Fall of Babylon. British Institution, 1819. 

Macbeth. British Institution, 1820. 

Belshazzar’s Feast. British Institution, 1821. Exhibited 
in the International Exhibition, 1862. Size 624 in. by 
98 in. 

Revenge. Royal Academy, 1821. 

The Paplian Bower. Royal Academy, 1823. 

Adam and Eve Entertaining the Angel Gabriel. British 
Institution, 1823. Size 52 in. by 72 in. 


280 John Martin, Painter, 


Syrinx. British Institution, 1824. 

Design for the Seventh Plague of Egypt, Royal Academy, 
18248 

The Deluge. British Institution, 1826; Royal Academy, 
1837. Size 66 in. by 102 in, 

The Fall of Nineveh. British Institution, 1828. Size 84 in. 
134 in. 

Leila. British Institution, 1833. 

Alpheus and Arethusa. British Institution, 1833. 

The Death of Moses. Royal Academy, 1838. 

The Death of Jacob. Royal Academy, 1838. 

The Last Man. Royal Academy, 1839. 

The Eve of the Deluge. Royal Academy, 1840. 

The Assuaging of the Waters. Royal Academy, 1840. 

The Celestial City and River of Bliss. Royal Academy, ° 
1841. 

Pandemonium, Royal Academy, 1841. 

The Flight into Egypt. Royal Academy, 1842. 

The Curfew Time. British Institution, 1842. 

Christ Stilleth the Tempest. Royal Academy, 1843; British 
Institution, 1844. 

Canute the Great Rebuking his Courtiers. Royal Academy, 
1843. 

Goldsmith's Hermit. British Institution, 1843. 

Morning 1n Paradise. Royal Academy, 1844; British 
Institution, 1845. 

Evening in Paradise. Royal Academy, 1844; British 
Institution, 1845. 

The Judgment of Adam and Eve. Royal Academy, 1844. 

The Fall of Man. Royal Academy, 1844. 





His Life and Times 281 

The Destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii. In the Tate 
Gallery. Formerly in the National Gallery. Bought 
by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. Sold at 
Christie’s in 1848. 

Arthur and Aigte in the Happy Valley. Royal Academy, 
1849; British Institution, 185r. 

The Last Man. Royal Academy, 1850. 

The Forest of Arden. British Institution, 1851. 

Moses Viewing the Promised Land (original design for large 
picture). British Institution, 1851. 

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Royal Academy, 
1852. 

The Destruction of Pharaoh’s Host. 

A Girl at Her Devotions. 

The Seventh Plague of Egypt. 

The Coronation of Queen Victoria. Sold at Christie’s, 1861. 

The Bowers of Bliss. Sold at Christie’s, 1861. 

Adam and Eve Praying at Sunset. Sold at Christie’s, 
1861. 

Adam and Eve Mourning over the Loss of Paradise. Sold 
at Christie’s, 1861. 

The Pilgrim and Hermit in Conversation. Sold at Christie's, 
1861. | 

The Crucifixion. In the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Edwin and Angelina. 

Love Among the Roses. 

The Fall of Jericho 

The Last Judgment. 

The Plains of Heaven. 

The Great Day of His Wrath. 





282 John Martin, Painter, 


LANDSCAPES 
(Exhibited at the Royal Academy and British Institution.) 


A Landscape Composition. Royal Academy, 181I. 

Landscape. Royal Academy, 1812. 

Scene on the Sea Coast. Royal Academy, 1812. 

View of a Lanenear Hampstead. British Institution, 1816. 

Carisbrooke Castle. British Institution, 1816. 

View in Kensington Gardens. British Institution, 1816. 

Another View. British Institution, 1816. 

View of the Entrance to Carisbrooke Castle. British In- 
stitution, 1816. 

Evening (illustrating Gray’s Elegy). British Institution, 
1817. 

Landscape Composition. British Institution, 1817. 

View in Kensington Gardens. British Institution, 1817. 

View of Fountain, Temple and Cave on the estate of Sir C. 
Cockerell, Bt. 

View of Farm on the estate of Sir C. Cockerell, Bt. 

View of Fountain on the estate of Sir C. Cockerell, Bt. 

View of South Flank of Seizincot House on the estate of Sir 
C. Cockerell, Bt. These four pictures exhibited at 
the Royal Academy, ro18. 

A Design for a National Monument to commemorate the 
Battle of Waterloo, adapted for the north end of 
Portland Place. Royal Academy, 1820. 

A Study from Nature, British Institution, 1826. 

Another Study from Nature. British Institution, 1826. 

Stanmer Church, Sussex. Royal Academy, 1839. 

View from Clapham Common. Royal Academy, 18309. 





His Life and Times 283 


Lane near Holland House. Royal Academy, 1839. 

Another View. Royal Academy, 18309. 

Lane near Hangar Hill, Middlesex. Royal Academy, 1839. 

The Corn-Riggs : View over the Valley of the Wandle. Royal 
Academy, 1840. 

View over the Valley of the Wandle, with Part of Wimbledon. 
Royal Academy, 1840. 

View from Horsingden Hill. Royal Academy, 1840. 

View near Croydon, Looking over Beckenham. Royal 
Academy, 1840. 

Scene in Brudgate Park. British Institution, 1840. 

Another scene in Brudgate Park. British Institution, 1840. 

Valley of the Tyne. ‘“‘ My Native Country from near Hen- 
shaw.’ Royal Academy, 1841. 

View of the Western Coast of Guernsey. Royal Academy, 
1841. 

View in the Vale of the Wandle: Spring. Royal Academy, 
1841. 

View in Coombe Wood: October. Royal Academy, 1841. 

View in Hampshire, Looking upon Alton. Royal Academy, 
1841. 

View of the Grounds of the Duchess of Buccleuch (on the Thames 
at Richmond.) Royal Academy, 1842. 

View in Earl Spencer's Grounds at Wimbledon, in May. 
Royal Academy, 1842. 

View on the River Brent: June. Royal Academy, 1842. 

View on the River Brent: July. Royal Academy, 1842. 

View from Leith Hill, Surrey, Looking towards the South. 
Royal Academy, 1843. | 

View from Leith Hill, Surrey, Looking towards the West. 
Royal Academy, 1843. 


284 John Martin, Painter, 


View over the Green in the Village of Oakley, Surrey. Royal 
Academy, 1843. 

Study from Nature on the Sussex Coast. Royal Academy, 
1843. 

Richmond Park, near Ham Gate. Royal Academy, 1844. 

Runnymede, View towards Cooper Hill and Egham. Royal 
Academy, 1844. 

Richmond Park, View towards Kingston. Royal Academy, 
1844. In the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

Richmond Park, View towards Teddington and Wzundsor 
Royal Academy, 1844. In the Victoria and Albert 
Museum. 

View on the River Wye, Looking towards Chepstow. Royal 
Academy, 1845. 

Cornfield : Sitting on a Stile. Royal Academy, 1846. 

Evening: Coming Storm. Royal Academy, 1846. 

The Brook. Royal Academy, 1846. 

Solitude. Royal Academy, 1846. 

The River. Royal Academy, 1846. 

The Farm. Royal Academy, 1846. 

View in Richmond Park. Royal Academy, 1847. 

View of the Wynn Cliff on the Wye. Royal Academy, 1847. 

View of the Old Encampment upon Wimbledon Common, 
Looking South. Royal Academy, 1848. 

View on the Brent: Spring. Royal Academy, 1848. 

Hangar Hull, Looking towards Richmond Hill. Royal 
Academy, 1848. 

The Entrance to Ilfracombe Harbour. Royal Academy, 1848. 

View on the North Coast of Devon. Royal Academy, 1848. 


Lindsay House, Chelsea. Royal Academy, 1848. 





His Life and Times 285 


View from Wyndchiff. Royal Academy, 1850. 

View, Looking towards Wyndcliff. 1850. 

Valley of the Thames, Viewed from Richmond Hill. Royal 
Academy, 1851. 

The Banks of the Thames, Opposite Pope’s Villa. Royal 
Academy, 1851. 

View near Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park. Royal 
Academy, 185I. 

Scene in a Forest Twilight. Royal Academy, 1852. 

View in Richmond Park. Royal Academy, 1852. 


In a collection of thirty-two pictures by John Martin, 
the property of Mr. Charles Scarisbrick, sold at Christie’s 
in 1861, we find the following landscapes, in addition to the 
above : 


A Landscape, with a cornfield near a stream. 

The Dell. 

A Cornfield. 

The Tarn (1845). 

A Bay Scene: Evening. 

Twilight, a romantic landscape (1843). 

Solitude, a beautiful landscape. 

A View near Richmond, with figures under the shadow of 
trees in the foreground, the Thames seen in bright 
sunshine in the distance (1850). 

A Romantic Woody Landscape, with vistas of distant view. 
Jacques seated in the foreground. 

Solitude. A beautiful small specimen of the picture ex- 
hibited in the Royal Academy, 1846. 

A Beautiful River Scene. 





286 John Martin, Painter, 

A River falling among Rocks, with richly-wooded banks. 
Dated 1815. 

Another Romantic River Scene. 

A Lake Scene, with romantic distance, 1845. 

A Romantic Landscape, illustrative of Gray’s Elegy. The 
sun is sinking behind the battlements of a ruined 
castle and throwing a magical effect of twilight over a 
valley in the centre. Size 52 in. by 83 in., 1842. 

Four landscapes in the possession of Colonel J. I. Bonomi. 

Two landscapes of the Wye Valley, formerly in the possession 
of Mr. Cross, sold at Christie’s fifty years ago for £100. 

Illustrations to the Bible (engraved and woodcut), Paradise 
Lost, Forget-me-not and Keepsake annuals, Wonders of 
Geology, The Wars of Jehovah, by T, Hawkins, F.G.S., 
Poems, by Bernard Barton, and designs for stained 
glass windows. 

Sepia drawings, three of which were recently sold at 
Christie’s. One, The Tournament (from Ivanhoe) has 
hundreds of tiny figures in it, all exquisitely finished, 
and many so minute as to need a powerful magnifying 
glass to see them. 


« 








Appendix (I) 289 


APPENDIX (I) 
ON THE GENIUS OF JOHN MARTIN 


(From the Library of Fine Arts, Dec., 1833, vol. iii.) 


‘ce 


. . . It would be worse than false to attempt to set 
up a standard of artistical comparison between John 
Martin and any other artist of the present day, or between 
his works and the works of any other artist. In this respect 
John Martin resembles Sir Joshua Reynolds; he can be 
judged of only by himself, and not by comparison with 
another. It would be, in our opinion, doing him the greatest 
wrong and injustice were we to compare him (as has been 
done) with the late lamented President of the Royal 
Academy, Sir John Lawrence; for the only argument, 
which in our opinion could be used in common justice to 
both, is that the one excelled precisely in those very great 
points of personal beauty and attraction in which the 
other almost universally fails, and vice versa. The critic, 
therefore, who could set up a standard of comparison between 
these two great artists must have been, we think, especially 
blinded to the great merits of each... . 

Every picture of this artist may be truly looked upon 


as a separate invention, and we claim for him, therefore, 
ge 





290 Appendix (1) 





this faculty in its highest sense of interpretation, without 
the fear of one dissentient voice. 

Genius, rich and abundant as his, could never have 
stooped to follow in the footsteps of greatness; he has 
chosen a high path in art, and he has led the way to it. 
The late venerable Benjamin West was among the first to 
perceive the great originality of our artist’s genius, and, 
with a noble frankness which did as much honour to one as 
it served for inspiration to the other, he predicted (and 
truly so) his future high career in art. . . . His pencil and 
his brush appear dipped in colours of fire ; and whether the 
scene represented be of Earth, of Heaven or of Hell, the 
same supernatural and magnificent effect is thrown over 
the whole. His cities, his towers, his walls, and his palaces 
are of such wide extent, such height and breadth, that the 
spectator who gazes on them for the first time, involuntarily 
calls up and associates them in his mind with the splendid 
imagery of some Arabian tale, or with the dreams he has 
dreamed of Memphis, Tyre and Thebes of old. The boun- 
daries of space, extent and dominion, which have been 
assigned to the usual rules of art, have been broken down 
by John Martin, and, wide as his pencil has traversed the 
canvas, new powers and new creations of supernatural 
glory and beauty have sprung up beneath it, until the whole 
canvas has glowed with the lightning of some mighty and 
magnificent creation. ... 

The subjects of his pictures are not taken from the 
common everyday scenes of life ; his name is never attached 
to any ‘portrait of a gentleman’ or to any picture of ‘still 
life,’ the scenes which inspire his pencil are the vast, the 


an 





Appendix (1) 291 


terrible, the gloomy, the grand, the awful, the powerful, the 
supernatural, the mighty, the magnificent ; and these are 
as diversified as they are beautiful and are all delineated 
with the hand, the power, and the skill of a master, whether 
the scene be of an immortal bower of paradise, or a glittering 
and magnificent city, or an old and solemn realm of ruin, 
the impress and the attributes of genius are alike stamped 
upon each. ... The highest range of imaginative genius, 
and the richest powers of invention, are therefore qualities 
which none will dispute him possession of. 

Whilst, however, we grant him the free abundance of 
these great powers, we must, at the same time, remark, that 
in many of his pictures there are evidences of a cautiousness 
and littleness of handling his brush, which, when noticed, 
detract much from the general grandeur of effect which his 
pictures do most unquestionably possess. Crowding, as he 
does, so many myriad beings in one picture and including 
in the same space such an immensity of territory, a thousand 
dots stand in the place of as many human forms, and a 
dash of the brush covers a wide extent of dominion: yet, 
if we examine these dots and dashes, we shall find them all 
finished off with the same careful, cautious touch of the 
pencil that, the more extended and prominent parts of the 
picture are. And from this part of our subject the transition 
is easy to another portion of it, in which that greatness of 
genius which is Martin’s own, is rendered still more proudly 
conspicuous. 

We allude to the splendour and extent of his archi- 
tectural perspective; and in the rich sum of knowledge 
which he possesses of this subject he ranks superior to any 








292 Appendix (I) 


artist living or dead . . . and we need scarcely tell our 
readers what rich and abundant proofs of this he affords in 
his paintings—it is a portion of his art in which he appears 
absolutely to revel with delight. Turner’s perspective is 
rich and golden ; but Martin’s is more rich and varied and 
dazzling still—it gives splendid and mighty extent of 
vastness to his landscapes, and spreads them out into such 
long, rich vistas of light and shade that their extent and 
altitude appear almost lost. 

It has been said that the vast realms of perspective which 
he places on the canvas are only the media through which 
he realises to the eye of the spectator the grandeur of the 
subjects which he employs for his pictures, and that the 
greatness of their extent are not present to his mind, but 
as he paints column after column and dome upon dome in 
the picture. We take leave to differ 7m toto from so hasty 
and crude a conclusion. We believe that the artist has the 
whole picture stretched upon the retina of his mind before 
he embodies it in actual colours before him upon the canvas. 
On this point we are ready only to concede that upon 
carefully going over every part of his picture, an artist 
may find many points which may be heightened in effect 
and beauty—many dispositions of figure which it would 
be well to alter; and many effects of light and shade 
which might be increased or softened down; and in this 
latter opinion we are purposely borne out by the fact that 
the artist himself, whose works we are now considering, did 
alter and amend the disposition of some of the figures in 
the engraving from what they were in the painting of the 
Fall of Nineveh. 


No oa ne 





Appendix (I) 293 


No one can look upon and admire the pictures of this 
artist without being struck with the true and apparent 
fact that in painting one picture he paints a thousand, and 
that the faults with which he has been charged by some, 
of minuteness of detail, and of heightening up every part 
of a picture to such an exquisite degree of finish as almost 
to dazzle the spectator, may rather be considered as errors 
on the right side. Every column, every temple and every 
vase of gold is a separate study in itself; and, if one large 
picture were to be cut up and divided into several smaller 
ones, they would each form a most exquisite and beautiful 
bit of art: and, if our memory serves us right upon this 
subject, such an idea as this was contemplated one time. 
Every picture which he paints is as a whole; there is 
nothing left out which would militate against the general 
effect that the spectator is to have of the scene represented 
—all the detail and design serve to one grand end. We 
will remark a little upon some of his pictures in corrobora- 
tion of this fact. 

In his Belshazzar’s Feast there was represented a 
magnificent hall in which there were a thousand guests 
revelling at a banquet-feast ; but this was not all. ‘ The 
vessels of silver and gold’ in which the feast was served, 
had been desecrated from the service of the Almighty for 
that very impious purpose, and, accordingly, the artist has 
displayed an immense variety of these in all parts of the 
hall, as serving to illustrate more particularly the character 
of the feast, and this is still made out in a more mysterious 
and wonderful manner by the mystic letters written with 
a pen of lightning upon the wall . . . where they blaze in all 





294 Appendix (I) 


their supernatural glory upon that impious, regal board, 
whilst all around, save one, are suddenly struck with 
dreadful fear, terror, and dismay, and the attitude of every 
single figure in the picture is made more or less to express 
this one general feeling throughout the whole of that vast 
assembly. 

In Joshua Commanding the Sun to Stand Still there is 
the same general concentration of design towards one great 
and mighty effect. Had Joshua stood alone on the wide 
plain without the city, all the effect would have centred in 
his attitude and bearing and a total failure in the general 
end would, and must have been the result—even had the 
figure of Joshua been done by Etty or Haydon, who, as 
we shall show presently, are far superior to Martin in the 
figurative department of their art. But in the picture 
Joshua does not stand alone—he is at the head of a mighty 
host, who stand fearfully watching the event of the sun 
standing still upon Gideon and the moon in the valley of 
Ajalon. 

Combining still to render the effect more imposing, there 
is a mighty tempest and whirlwind of the elements intro- 
duced, and the distant city seems to stand in awful solitude 
during the mysterious hours of that awful phenomena of 
Nature. 

Again, if we examine the Fall of Nineveh, we shall find 
that the artist had abundant scope afforded him of con- 
centrating many mighty conflicting passions into one 
general and great effect. 

The feelings which this painting depicts are of a more 
varied and conflicting nature than in any other painting by 





Appendix (I) 295 


this artist. . . . The time represented is at the “‘ siege and 
sacking of a mighty city’”’—there existed, therefore, no 
positive necessity for introducing any crash or conflict of 
the elements, the mighty warfare around and within the 
city would have been sufficient to concentrate the entire 
effect of the picture in the spectator’s mind. In the dis- 
tance is seen the dim magnificence of Nineveh. In the 
centre is represented the principal scene of the assault of 
the besiegers—there is a wide breach made in the city wall, 
and the galleys of the enemy are seen rapidly approaching. 
This prepares the mind for the scene in the foreground 
where Sardanapalus, his wives and concubines, are seen 
lingering awhile on the marble gallery before they go to the 
vast funeral pile of gems and gold which has been raised 
for their destruction. . 

We have heard an opinion given that Martin never 
stooped to copy a fine figure, or ever embarrassed the keen 
and rich temper of his imagination by the study of artistical 
anatomy. We are willing to grant that to him this might 
have been a matter of great drudgery, and that, whilst 
employed in the acquisition of so important and essential 
a branch of his art, he might have lost many a valuable 
hour in which the graphic ideas of his imagination might 
have been employed in some rich scene for another Nineveh. 
Yet we cannot absolve him from, nor can he clearly dis- 
prove the charge of, wilful negligence and ignorance which 
might here be brought against him, for not devoting his 
attention to a branch of art, ignorance in which is not only 
culpable but must have proved highly injurious to him. 
In the drawing, colouring, and attitude of his figures, he is 





206 Appendix (I) 


always found to fail—the first is generally incorrect, the 
second is cold and statue-like, the third is almost always 
unnatural. It has generally been asserted that the figure 
of Sardanapalus in the Fall of Nineveh formed a great 
exception to the sweeping asseveration which we have just 
made; but, for our own part, we could never be brought 
to give our unqualified admiration to this figure. The 
attitude was stiff and formal, and the whole seemed to our 
eye to glare viciously on us from the canvas. ... We 
trust, however, that it is not yet too late for these great 
errors which we have pointed out to be remedied by this 
great master. ... 

We have thus endeavoured to point out to our readers 
what we consider to be the prevailing claims which Mr. 
Martin has to take a very high and distinguished rank 
among the artists of Great Britain; and we have now to 
inquire, and very briefly, in what way those claims have 
been received and acknowledged—first by his brother 
artists, secondly by those who rejoice in the title of Patrons 
of British Art. By the first of these classes, taking them 
individually, we are happy to say that our artist has been 
judged according to the full award of his merits and has had 
every claim which justice could award him; yet, as if to 
add another proof to the true inconsistency of man, or of 
the nature which rules within him, as if to shew, we had 
almost said, what the overbearing spirit of jealousy and 
power can do—what shall we say to that great body of 
British artists who constitute the members of the Royal 
Academy when the truth stares them and the whole world 
in the face—that John Martin is NOT a member of the 





Appendix (I) 207 





Royal Academy? But if this be a blot and an indelible 
stain of disgrace upon the Royal Academy, what shall we 
say to those pseudo patrons of British Art, who profess 
their anxiety to support the Fine Arts in this country ? 
What shall we say to them when they own, as own they 
must, that they never yet gave Martin one single com- 
mission and never yet purchased one of his pictures? The 
only excuse we can naturally offer for the insanity of their 
conduct is, that the magnificent conceptions of our artist 
are of far too exalted a nature for their grovelling com- 
prehensions, 

But the time is now gone by and, as if in illustration of 
the old proverb of a prophet receiving no honour in his 
Own country, justice—tardy justice has at length been 
done to John Martin, but not by his own countrymen ;— 
no, an infant kingdom has been the first and hitherto the 
only one to do justice to our artist. Early in the summer 
artists were invited to send their pictures to the ensuing 
exhibition of Art in Brussels, and our artist was among 
those who availed themselves of this invitation, and im- 
mediately forwarded his Nineveh with some other pictures 
to the scene of exhibition. The result was one highly 
gratifying in every respect to this excellent artist himself 
and flattering likewise to those amongst whom he was here 
as a brother. The King of Belgium immediately honoured 
him with the Order of Leopold—he was elected, without 
solicitation, a member of the Belgic Academy and the 
Belgian government purchased at his own price (2,000 
guineas) the Fall of Nineveh. 


1 Amistake. The picture was returned. 





298 Appendix (I) 


Though whilst writing this we feel a deep and bitter 
regret that our government and our country have not 
been first to seé so noble and honourable an example for 
others to follow, yet for the artist’s sake, and for the sake 
of Art in general, do we rejoice that that justice which he 
has so long and so richly deserved has been at last done 
him. Let the Royal Academy pause and consider of these 
things—let the patrons of British Art visit the studio where 
Nineveh was conceived—then let them digest and own our 
remarks and our own judgment true. 





Appendix (II) 299 


APPENDIX (II) 


Letter from M. Feuillet de Conches. 
MON CHER MONSIEUR, 
... J'ai été Samedi dernier, 4 la Manufacture 
Royale de porcelaines de Sévres oti le Directeur, le savant 
professeur Brougeriart, l’ami et le collaborateur de Georges 
Cuvier, et l’ami-né de tous les artistes, m’a montré le plus 
grand empressement, a choisir quelque chose qui vous 
fit agréable. Nous avons tous deux éprouvé, dans cette 
circonstance, au milieu des richesses céramiques qui nous 
entouraient, que quelque fois l’abondance de bien peut 
nuire—le choix nous a paru difficile-—En effet, vous m’avez 
exprimé une préférence marquée pour un service a café. 
Or, les services 4 café un peu riches que l’on exécute pour le 
Roi n’ont jamais ni cafetiére ni sucrier en porcelaine: ces 
deux piéces-la sont toujours en or, en argent, ou en 
vermeil. Comme il s’agissait d’un cadeau de porcelaine, 
nous sommes trouvés embarrassés pour répondre a votre 
désir, sans nous écarter de la volonté du Roi, qu a recom- 
mandé de ne point vous envoyer une chose ordinaire. 
Pour tout concilier, voici ce que nous avons arrété, sauf 
votre avis qu’il est couvenu entre nous que je prendrais 
confidentiellement :— 
S’il est d’usage de ne point employer la porcelaine pour 
les deux piéces principales des services a café de grand luxe, 








300 Appendix (IIT) 


il n’en est pas de méme a l’égard des services ordinaires ; 
ou, mon cher Monsieur, il existe un service complet pour 
douze personnes, forme étrusque, a cétes, sans autre orne- 
ment, qu’un filet d’or dans le fond de chaque céte. Les 
formes sont trés pures, la matiére est également d’une grande 
pureté ; mais c’est la un cabaret trés simple, puisqu’il est 
dénué de riches ornements.! I[’l s’agit, nous sommes-nous 
dit, d’envoyer 4 Mr. Martin un cadeau royal et non de 
monter son ménage. Mais, j’ai ajouté: je mets de coté 
ce Service qui pourra devenir un objet usuel, et qui d’ailleurs, 
sans étre un objet de haut luxe, sera, aux yeux de Mr. Martin 
un produit remarquable par l’élégance et le gotit des formes 
et la pureté de la porcelaine. Ceci fait, nous avons noté 
deux trés-beaux vases, objets de luxe, dont le fond est bleu 
et dont les deux faces sont chargées de fleurs et de fruits 
peints par le plus habile décorateur de Sévres. Nous avons 
noté également deux tasses riches a café avec leur sous- 
tasses dans le style oriental :—piéces détachées qui servat 
ornement a la fois et le service de la table. 
Notre choix se compose, donc, en résumé, de 
1° Une paire de vases de luxe richement décorés, 

2 


° Une paire de tasses orientales 


3° Uncabaret a café étrusque pour douze personnes. 
Mais ce choix-la est subordonné toute fois au vétre, car nous 
avons aussi avisé au service a thé pour deux personnes: 
théiére, sucrier, pot-a-lait, et deux tasses avec un présentoir 
a manche central, le tout en porcelaine. Ce petit service 
est richement décoré. Si vous le préfériez au _ service 


1 The colour is that of the service uniform of the French army, 
known as ‘ horizon blue,’ a very delicate tint in the porcelain. The 
handles are of gold. 





Appendix (II) 301 


étrusque plus simple, vous n’avez qu’a parler. Ou n’a 
qu’un desir, celui de vous étre agréable. 

Je comprends a merveille que de loin et sans voir, vous 
soyiez embarrassé pour répondre; mais c’est a vous de 
décider s'il vous est plus convenable de recevoir un objet 
riche pour deux personnes ou un simple pour douze; bien 
entendu que les autres articles (vases et coupes orientales) 
vous sont acquis dans tous les cas. Je les ai fait mettre a 
part. J’ai fait pour les mieux ; quand vous aurez prononcé, 
on placera les objets sous les yeux du Roi, et l’envoi vous en 
sera fait par l’ambassade de Sa Majesté. .. . 

Un mot donc, cher Monsieur, et mille civilités. 

F, FEUILLET DE CONCHES, 
Chef du protocole au departement des affaires 
, étrvangeres. 
Paris. 
27 Mat, 1835. 


London, 30, Allsop Terrace, New Road. 
June ist, 1835. 
My DEAR SIR, 

. .. I cannot express how much I regret the 
trouble you have had respecting the service of porcelaine. 
Believe me, that I esteem so distinguished a mark of the 
approbation of His Majesty the King of the French, as so 
high an honour, that I found it difficult and did not like to 
name a preference where I scarcely had any. If I found it 
difficult to do so when you wrote before, the difficulty is 
anything but diminished now. I, therefore, beg to entrust 
the choice entirely to you, at the same time concurring 





302 Appendix (IT) 


in the justice of your remarks respecting the simple taste of 
Artists; and, for myself, I have always had a particular 
affection for the pure Etruscan. 

But how am I, my dear Sir, to thank you sufficiently 
for all the trouble you have taken on my account ? When 
I attempt to do so, words fail me; and I am obliged to 
trust to you to imagine what I feel and would say, but rest 
assured I shall ever remain 

Faithfully yours, 
J. MARTIN. 





Appendix (IIT) 303 


APPENDIX (III) 


STATEMENT OF DATES CORROBORATIVE OF JOHN MARTIN’S 
MEMORIAL 


In the year 1827 I published a plan of supplying London 
with water from the River Colne, which plan appeared in 
the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons upon 
Metropolis water supply 1828. 

The object becoming of daily greater moment, J made 
further inquiries and surveys towards the practical execu- 
tion of the Coine Plan, and published the result in the 
summer of 1828, with explanatory maps and plans and 
likewise ‘‘ the details of a proposition for securing the Thames 
from the admission of the sewage, and rendering it available 
as manure.”’ 

It is most essential to observe that this is the very first 
tume any proposal for preserving the River from pollution 
by diverting the Town sewage and applying it to agri- 
cultural purposes was advanced and laid down as a principle. 

In order to meet any opposition that might arise to the 
Colne Plan, I published in 1829 a second illustrated Plan 
“for supplying London with a purer water by a weir across 
the Thames at Chelsea,” and a “‘ Plan for more effectually 
draining certain marshy lands contiguous to the Thames.”’ 

Being more impressed by the importance of the object, 








304 Appendix (IIT) 





the more I reflected upon it, and becoming rapidly better 
acquainted with its various [word omitted] I published in 
1832 and 3 farther illustrated Plans for improving the air 
and water of the Metropolis by preventing the sewage being 
conveyed into the Thames and for using the manure for 
agricultural purposes ; containing also a plan of house and 
sewer traps, and mode of ventilating the sewers. This plan 
subsequently appeared in the House of Commons Report 
upon the sewers of the Metropolis, 1834; and in the same 
year, in the House of Commons Report upon Metropolis 
water supply, together with a plan for supplying water 
from the Thames at Teddington, the chymist analyses, 
and engineers’ surveys and estimatesin full being furnished. 

In 1836 an endeavour was made by a Committee of 
influential gentlemen to carry out the Thames Improvement 
Plan in the entire state as it then stood, and both the 
Government and the city authorities gave a favourable 
hearing, but the proceedings adopted by some of the parties 
with whom we were associated caused me, in justice to my 
generous friends, and to my own character, to withdraw ; 
and the whole consequently fell to the ground. 

In 1838 the entire [word omitted] with all the additional 
details furnished by the assistance of the Admiralty and 
the Commissioners of Sewers, appeared in the House of 
Commons Report upon Metropolitan Improvements. 

In 1840 I was prepared with the plan, with certain 
required alterations, to facilitate the accomplishment of 
the work by portions, each conforming with the general 
whole, but the Thames Embankment Committee rose after 
a few sittings only and I was obliged to reserve it until 





Appendix (III) 305 


1842, when I published the plan in detail with various 
additions, and, amongst others, a comprehensive descrip- 
tion of the mode of distributing the sewer water by high 
pressure pipes and hose. In this year Mr. Chadwick’s 
Sanitary Report appeared, containing no mention of dis- 
tribution by hose—but strongly recommending water meadows 
as the most effective mode of applying the sewage. 

In 1843, this plan was submitted to the Metropolis 
Improvement Commission and such portions as suited the 
immediate purpose of the inquiry appeared in its Report. 

In the same year the entire remaining parts of the plan 
were submitted to the Health of Towns Commission which 
received it with great attention; but though the notes of 
my evidence were taken and revised by me for the printer, 
this evidence never appeared in the final report. 

In 1845-6-7 and the present year I published reiterations 
of my plans with various improvements in the details, and 
all entirely at my own expense ; and now at thisvery time 
the Commissioners of Sewers and their officers are urging 
principles and plans originated as stated above, but without 
one allusion to me, their originator 

JOHN MARTIN, 
_ Lindsay House, 
Chelsea. 


July, 1849. 





306 Appendix (IV) 


APPENDIX (IV) 
MARTIN'S METROPOLIS IMPROVEMENT PLANS (WITH MAP) 


No. 

. General Plan. 

. Sewer Plan, on Commissioners’ map. 

. Self-relieving sewer. 

. Collecting, conveying and distributing sewage. 
. Do. water. 

. Sewage application to the land. 

7. Section and ground plan of Pump Well. 

8a. Engine house. 

gb. Water and sewage supply. 

8. Section of Embankment. 

g. Elevation of Embankment with Railway at Thames St. 
10. Embankment and Public Walk. 

Ir. Section of Main Street sewer. 


no BP WwW ND A 


12. Section of Railway at the Bridge. 

13. Embankment and Public Walk. 

14. Connecting Railway. 

15. Do. small with Description. 

16. Railway Bridge. 

18, 19, 20, 21. Westminster Bridge. 
Three pamphlets. 





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Index 


309 





INDEX 


ACKERMANN, R. 50 51, 78, 155, 
157, 159, 163, 167, 168 

Ada, Countess of Lovelace, 73 

Adam’s First Sight of Eve, 61, 77, 78 

Adam and Eve Entertaining the 
Angel Raphael, 111, 131 

Addison, Joseph, 172 

4ésop’s Fables, 171 

Agnew & Zanetti, Messrs., 159 

Ainsworth, Harrison, 115, 122-4, 
163, 164, 182, 261, 266 

Albert, H.R.H. The Prince Con- 
sort, 134-6, 139, 204, 221, 239- 
42, 265 

Alcock, Dr. Thomas, 71, 72, 91, 170 

Alexandra Palace, The, 247 

Allston, Washington, 97, 103 

All Things Made New, 245 

Alpheus and Arethusa, 145 

Amulet, The, 167, 168 

Anarchism in Art, 268 

Anderson, Mrs., 74, 117 

Andrews, Mr. (the Publisher), 172, 
173 

Angel’s Whisper, The, 117 

Another View in Kensington Gar- 
dens, 78 

Aristocracy of England, The, 193 

Arthur and Oegte in the Happy 
Valley, 145 

Artist, The, 269 

Assuagement of the Waters, The, 
135, 136, 138 


Atheneum, The, 112, 174 
Atheneum Club, The, 172, 174 
Atherstone, William Guybon, 181 


BAILEY, P. J., 188 

Bard, The, 78, 87, 88 

Barnaby Rudge, 71 

Barry, Charles, 204 

Bartholdy, Felix Mendelssohn, 274 

Bartolozzi, L. E. L., 74, 115, 117 

Barton, Bernard, 109, 138, 169 

Bay of Biscay, The, 116 

Beaconsfield, Benjamin Disraeli, 
Earl of, 261 

Beaufort, Admiral Sir Francis, 204, 
237, 238 

Beaufort, The Duke of, 204, 207, 
208 

Beaumont, Sir George, 96, 98, 99, 
274 

Beckford, William, 81, 186 

Bedford, The Duchess of, 122 

Belgic Academy, The, 297 

Bell, Fx, 821 

Belshazzar’s Feast, 63, 69, 93, 100, 
102-10, 148-50, 153, 155, 159, 
160, 237, 253, 254, 260, 269, 272, 
274, 275, 293 

Berlin, The Royal Academy at, 273 

Berlioz, Hector, 274, 275 

Bernard, Bayle, 97 

Bernard, Sir Thomas, 62 


| Bewick, Thomas, 157, 226 





310 Index 


Bible Illustrations, The, 157, 158, 
169, 190, 216, 219, 231 

Birmingham Journal, The, 255 

Birmingham Mercury, The, 254 

Blackwood’s Magazine, 69 

Blanc, Charles, 275 

Blessington, The Countess of, 97, 
142, 143, 164, 168 

Board of Works, The, 2o1 

Bonaparte, Joseph, Ex-King of 
Sardinia, 141, 142 

Bonomi, Ignatius, 72, 259 

Bonomi, Joseph, 72, 259 

Bonomi, C.B.E., Colonel Joseph 
Ignatius, 186, 258, 260, 264 

Book of Beauty, The, 166 

Book of Gems, The, 166 

Bowdiet, Miss, 132 

Braham, John, 115, 116 

Braham, Miss, 116, 117 

Bramah, Joseph, 264 

Brickwood, Thomas, 234 

Bridge, Sir Frederick, 261 

Bright, John, 204 

Bristol Gazette, The, 255 

Bristol Mirror, The, 255 

British Association, The, 26 

British Institution, The, 58, 61, 62, 
77-9, 88, 90, 91, 93, 99, 102, IIT, 
131, 134, 135, 145, 146 

Britton, John, 172, 173 

Brochendon, William, 150 

Brougeriart, Professor, 299 

Brunel, J. K., 228, 229, 264 

Brunswick, The Duke of, 187 

Buckingham and Chandos, The 
Duke of, 107, 235-7, 266 

Bull, Mr. (the Publisher), 216 

Bunyan, John, 120 

Burdette, Sir Francis, 187 

Burns, Capt. and Mrs,, 177, 178 


Burns, Mr. (the Solicitor), 218 
Burns, Robert, 23, 175, 176 
Byron, Lady, 72, 81 

Byron, Lord, 54, 72, 73, 138, 188, 189 


CaIN Illustrations, The, 188, 189 

Campbell, Thomas, 145, 146, 173 

Canterbury, The Archbishop of, 230 

Canute the Great Rebuking His 
Courtiers, 146, 223, 224 

Carlingford, Lord, 117 

Caroline, Queen, 98, 176 

Celestial City and River of Bliss, 
The, 145, 158 

Century of Painters of the English 
School, A, 271 

Chalfred and Dawes, Messrs., 154 

Chamber’s Encyclopedia, 271 

Chantrey, Sir Francis, 128 

Character of Trees, The, 78 

Charge of the Light Brigade, The, 226 

Charlotte, H.R.H. The Princess, 64, 
79, 79, 237 

Chichester, The Bishop of, 230 

Christian Keepsake and Missionary 
Annual, The, 166 

Christie’s, 63, III, 263, 266 

Christ Stilleth the Tempest, 145, 146 

Clare, John, 165 

Clarence Club, The, 174 

Clark, Adam, 137 

Clark, Major, 74 

Charles I., 120 

Claude le Lorrain, 59, 255 

Clennan, Luke, 170 

Clennell, Luke, 226 

Clytic, A, 57-60, 62, 77 

Colburn & Co., Messrs., 189 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 199 

Collins’s, 52, 53, 55, 50, 58, 102, 
104, 107, 146 





Index 


Collins, William, 94, 111, 179 

Constable, John, 71, 179, 180, 181 

Cook, E. Wake, 268-71 

Cooke, W. F., 227 

Cooper, Thomas Sidney, 39, 62 

Coronation of Queen Victoria, 
The, 146, 221, 222, 224, 231 

Court of Sewers, The, 206, 207, 211, 
212, 304, 305 

Creation, The, 111 

Cromwell, Oliver, 119 

Cross, John, 223 

Crucifixion, The, 146, 168, 216 

Cruikshank, George, 126, 127, 171 

Cunningham, Allan, 117, 157, 170, 
175-8, 259 

Cunningham, Hugh, 261 

Cunningham, Peter, 37, 38, 48, 64, 
83, 170, 192, 259 

Cunningham, W. A., 259 

Curfew Time, The, 145 

Cuvier, Baron Georges, 132, 133, 299 


DALE, The Rev. Thomas, 166 

Dante, Alighieri, 156, 269 

Darce, Lady, 164 

Day & Martin, Messrs., 187 

Day, Miss, 187 

Day of Judgment, The, 253, 256 

Death of Jacob, The, 145 

Death of Moses, The, 144 

Death of Savdanapalus, The, 144 

De Broglie, Le Duc, 194, 195 

De Conches, F. Feuillet, 301, 302 

De Cosson, Baroness, 36, 202, 259 

Defoe, Daniel, 76 

Deluge, The, 111, 131-7, 144, 146, 
149, 153, 160, 182, 253, 254, 265, 
276 

Descent from the Cross, The, 53 

Destroying Angel, The, 254 


311 


Destruction of Herculaneum, The, 
107, I10, 252, 266 

Destruction of Pharaoh’s Host, The, 
146 

Destruction of Sodom and Go- 
morvah, The, 146, 222 

Dibden, The Rev. Dr., 230 

Dickens, Charles, 70, 71, 74, 75, 81, 
124-6, 177, 182, 186, 243, 259, 261 

Dictionary of National Biography, 
The, 104, 168, 182 

Dilke, Bart., Sir C. W., 174 

Dilke, Junior, C. W., 174 

Donaldson, Thomas L., 184, 207 

Doré Gallery, The, 247 

D’Orsay, Count, 142 

Drake’s Gallery, 63 

Durham, The Bishop of, 230 


EDINBURGH Academy, The, 237 

Edinburgh Review, The, 181, 272 

Edwin and Angelina, 91 

Elegant Extracts, 166 

Elegy Written in a Country Church- 
yard, 145 

Elliotson, Dr. John, 204, 248-50 

Ellis, S. M., 164, 171, 267 

Enderby, Messrs., 228 

End of the World, The, 203, 245 

England and the English, 132 

Erskine, Lord, 186 

Essay on the Imaginative Faculty, 
105, 106 

Etty, R. A., William, 170, 294 

Evening, 78 

Evening in Paradise, 145 

Eve of the Deluge, The, 134-6, 145, 
146, 162 

Examiner, The, 82 

Expulsion of Adam and Eve from 
Paradise, The, 61 








312 Index 


Fall of Babylon, The, 84, 87-90, 253 

Fall of Man, The, 146 

Fall of Nineveh, The, 84, 111, 112, 
I3I, 134, 139-43, 146, 154, 160, 
181, 185, 220, 276, 292, 294-8 

Faraday, Michael, 204-6 

Fenwicks of Bywell, The, 20 

Festus, 188 

Fielding, Cecilia, 72, 259 

Fielding, Henry, 72 

Fighting Téméraive, The, 85 

Findons, One of the, 158 

Fitzgerald, Edward, 167 

Fitzherbert, Mrs., 81 

Fitzstephen, William, 66 

Flaxman, John, 251 

Flight into Egypt, The, 146 

Fonblanque, Mr. and Mrs. Albany, 
121 

Forest of Arden, The, 145 

Forget-Me-Not, 155, 163, 166-8 

Forster, Frank, 211 

Forster, John, 171 

Fortescue, Chichester, 117 

Fox, George, 120 

Frankenstein, 115 

Franklin, Benjamin, 23 

Frederick William of Prussia, 141 

Freeman, Messrs., 159 

French, Mary, 36 

Friendship’s Offering, 164 

Frith, R.A., W. P., 186 

Fry, Mrs., 129 


GALT, John, 136 

Garrett, Miss Susan, 53 
George IV., 176 

Giaour, The, 145 

Gilbert, Sir John, 97 
Godwin, Dr. Thomas, 119 
Godwin, William, 115, 117-20 


Goldsmith, Oliver, 76 

Goodall, L., 167 

Graeff, M., 179 

Gray, Thomas, 78, 145, 179 

Great Day of His Wrath, The, 149, 
223, 224, 245, 248, 253, 257, 263 

Great Western Railway, The, 228 

Greff, M., 140 

Grey, Earl, 139, 204, 221, 222 

Grosvenor, Lord Robert, 204, 210 

Grundy & Fox. Messrs., 159 

Gurney, Daniel, 129 

Gurney, Lady Harriet, 129 


HADDINGTON, The Earl of, 238 

Hall, Mrs. S. C., 168 

Hall, S. C., 117 

Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, 261 

Hamlet, tot 

Harcourt, Dr., 230 

Harcourt, Vernon, 116 

Hardcastle of Newcastle, Mr., 158 

Hargreave, Oliver, 212, 213 

Harris & Co., Messrs., 151 

Hatchards, Ltd., Messrs., 191, 192 

Hatchetts, Messrs., 192 

Hawkins, S. H., 154 

Haydon, Benjamin Robert, 250, 
294 

Hayward, A., 190, I9I 

Hazlitt, William, 86, 87, 272 

Hearts of Oak, 116 

Heath, Charles, 163, 167 

Heath, Thomas, 168 

Heine, Heinrich, 274 

Henry VIII., 232 

Hermit, The, 78, 145 

History of Clerkenwell, The, 76 

History of London, The, 66 

Hodgkin, Dr. Thomas, 204, 208-10, 
213 








Index 


Hogarth, Miss (afterwards Mrs. 
Charles Dickens), 123 

Hogarth, William, 118, 251 

Hogg, James, 177, 178, 275 

Holland, Lady, 117 

Holroyd, Sir Charles, 247 

Hood, Thomas, 115, 117, 118 

Hope, H. T., 88, 89 

Household Words, 242, 243 

Howard, John, 129 

Howick, Lord, 221 

Howitt, William, 193, 194, 204 

Howley, Dr., 230 

Hughes, T. H., 104 

Hume, Joseph, 187 

Hunt, Henry, 187 

‘Hunt, John, 82, 170 

Hunt, Leigh, 81, 82, 186 


Illustrated London News, The, 37, 
64, 148, 196, 259, 261, 271 

Importunate Authors, 97 

Inferno, 156 

Institution of Civil Engineers, The, 
199 

International Exhibition, 63 

Ireland, Dean, 230 

Ivis, 166, 167 

Irving, Washington, 97, 261 

Isle of Man, The, 245, 250, 252, 
262 

Ivanhoe, 65, 275 


Jackson, R.A., John, 170 

James I., 264 

Jameson, Mrs., 172 

Jeffrey, Francis, 181 

Jenkin Brothers, The, 74 
Jerdan, William, 172, 173, 182-5 
Jerrold, Douglas, 126, 127 
Josephus’s Antiquities, 137 


313 





Joshua Commanding the Sun to 
Stand Still, 62-4, 76, 78, 145, 149, 
153, 159, 160, 269, 294 

Judgment of Adam and Eve, The, 
146 


KEAN, Edmund, 118, 119 

Keepsake, The, 164-8 

Kennedy, W., 165 

King, Dr., 261 

Knight, Frank & Rutley, Messrs 
131 


Lams, Charles, 105, 106, 109, 169, 
272 

Lambe, Messrs., 159 

Landscape Composition, A, 58, 62, 
65, 78, 79, III 

Landseer, Charles, 117, 120, 177 

Landseer, Sir Edwin, 117, 120-2, 171 

Landseer, John, 117 

Landseer, Thomas, 120 

Last Judgment, The, 203, 223, 245, 
248, 251 

Last Man, The, 145, 146 

Lawrence, Sir John, 289 

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 175 

Lee, Mrs., 132, 133 

Leech, John, 171 

Leggatt, Hayward & Leggatt, 
Messrs., 257 

Legge, Dr., Bishop of Oxford, 28 

Leicester, Lord, 128 

Leicester Mercury, The, 256 

Leila, 145 

Le Jeune, 223 

Le Keux, Henry, 155, 167, 168 

Lennox, Lord William, 164 

Leopold I., King of Belgium, 64, 66, 
79, 140, 141, 237, 251, 260, 297 

Leslie, Charles Robert, 93-8, 103 





314 Index 


Leyland, Sir Edward, 131 

Leyland, Colonel Naylor, 63 

Liber Studiorum, 148 

Library of Fine Arts, The, 298 

Life of Charles Dickens, The, 171 

Life of Harrison Ainsworth, The, 
164, I71, 267 

Life of John Bunyan, The, 158 

Life of W. M. Thackeray, The, 171 

Lincoln, Lord, 204 

Lindsay, The Earl of, 264 

Linnecar, G., 159-61 

Linnell, John, 94 

Linton, William James, 70 

Literary Gazette, The, 172, 182 

Literary Magnet, The, 144 

Literary Souvenir, The, 166 

Literary Union, The, 174 

Liverpool Academy, The, 224 

Lockhart, J. G., 91 

London Magazine, The, 69 

London, The Bishop of, 230 

Longfellow, H. W., 261 

Longman, Thomas, 71 

Loudon, J. C., 115 

Louis Philippe of France, 141, 194, 
195, 260 

Love Among the Roses, 91 

Lovelace, Ada, Countess of, 73 

Lover, Samuel, 117 

Low-Backed Car, The, 117 

Lupton, Thomas, 151 

Lyndhurst, Lord, 261 

Lytton, Lord Edward Bulwer, 132, 
168, 261 


MACBETH, 9QI-3 

Macheath in Prison, 97 
Maclean, Thomas, 246, 247, 257 
Maclise, R.A., Daniel, 171 
Macready, W. C., 81 











Magazine of the Fine Arts, 107 

Maid of Elvar, The, 157, 158 

Major, John, 158 

Manchester Art Gallery, The, 266 

Manning, Mr., 59, 79, 80, 89 

Mantell, Dr., 130 

Marcus Curtius, Engraving of, 155, 
168 

Martin, Alfred, 260 

Martin, Charles, 98, 261, 262 

Martin, Isabella Mary, 36, 54, 65, 
158, 159, 162, 204, 211, 212, 249, 
250, 258, 259, 264, 276 

Martin, Jessie, 54, 72, 202, 258 

Martin, John, The painter: His 
birth, 36, 37; Schooldays, 36, 
37; Apprenticeship to Herald 
Painter, 39-43; Appearance in 
Court, 41, 42; Studying under 
the Mussos, 45-7; Migration to 
London, 47; Marriage, 53; 
First Exhibit at the Royal 
Academy, 58; As an etcher, 78; 
Violent temper, 83; Resent- 
ment against the Royal Aca- 
demy, 93; The triumph of 
Belshazzar’s Feast, 102; Even- 
ings at Home, 115; Visited by 
Royalty, 134; Becomes an en- 
graver, 148; His connection 
with the Annuals, 163 ; Club life, 
172; At the height of his 
popularity, 186; Schemes for 
the improvement of London, 
196; Dark days, 216; Return 
to fame, 221; ‘Some of his 
friends, 226; Last pictures, 245 ; 
Last illness, 248; Death, 250; 
Tributes of his genius, 251; 
His family, 258; Criticisms of 
his work, 268 ; List of works, 279 





Index 


Martin, John, the painter’s son, 
54, 65 

Martin, Mrs. John (Susan), the 
painter’s wife, 53, 54, 69, 74, 82, 
109, 219, 220, 258 

Martin, Jonathan: Life in the 
Navy, 27; Marriage, 28; Re- 
ligious mania, 28, 29; Second 
marriage, 29; Attempt to burn 
down York Minster, 29-33; His 
death, 33; His son, William’s 
Suicide, 33, 198, 220 

Martin, Leopold Charles, 260, 261 

Martin, Richard, 23, 26, 34, Sr 
218, 221 

Martin, Thomas Hunt, 247, 262 

Martin, Watkin, 187 

Martin, William, 23, 24-7, 198 

Martin, William Fenwick, 20-22, 39, 
44, 45 

Martin, Mrs. William Fenwick, 22, 
23 

Martin, William Fenwick (son of 
the painter), 54, 65 

Martin, Zenobia, 76, 170, 259 

Matthews, Charles, 117 

Melbourne, Lord, 261 

Melville, Lewis, 171 

Men of Mark ’Twixt Tyne and 
Tweed, 25 

Metropolitan Improvement Plan, 
203 

Metropolitan Sewage Manure Biil, 
208, 212 

Midsummeyr’s Night’s Dream, A, 191 

Milman, Dean, 230 

Milton Illustrations, The, 148, 155, 
156, 158, 162, 231 

Milton, John, 54, 61, 166, 179, 188, 
189 

Mirror, The, 143 


315 


Molton, Messrs., 159 

Mona’s Herald, 252 

Moon, Boys & Graves, Messrs. 
159, 216 

Moore, Thomas, 115, 117 

Morning Chronicle, The, 124 

Morning in Paradise, 145 

Mummy, The, 115 

Muss, Charles, 45, 48, 51-3, 55, 74, 
77, 80, 96, 186 

Muss, Mrs. Charles, 52, 53 

Musso, Boniface, 45, 77, 79, 80, 
233, 234 

Murray, John, 158, 171 


NAPOLEON, Prince Louis, 142 

National Gallery, The, 183, 248, 
251, 266, 269 

Naylor, J. M., 63 

Neale, Henry, 165 

Newcastle Corporation Art Gallery, 
261 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 26 

Newton, R.A., Stuart, 97 

New Year's Eve and Other Poems, 
169 

Nicholas I. of Russia, 141, 181 

North, Christopher, 275 

Northumberland, The Duke of, 204, 
243, 244 

Norton, Caroline, 115 

Norwich, The Bishop of, 230 

Nugent, Lord, 164 


Observer, The, 132, 138, 249 

Ode to the Nativity, 166 

Ode to the Passions, 111 

Order of Leopold, The, 140, 262, 
297 

Ouranoulogos, 136 

Ovid, 77 








316 


Index 





Owen, Dr. John, 119 
Oxford Journal, The, 254 


PALMERSTON, Lady, 117 

Pandemonium, 145 

Paphian Bowers, The, 111, 131 

Paradise Lost, 145, 169 

Parker, Admiral Hyde, 263 

Peacock, Dean, 130 

Peel, Sir Robert, 187, 212 

Pepys, Samuel, 67, 70, 172 

Phillips, Mr. (the Auctioneer), 220 

Phipps, Colonel C. B., 241, 242 

Pilgrim’s Progress, The, 158, 169 

Pinks, Mr. (the Historian), 76 

Plains of Heaven, The, 203, 223, 
245, 248, 251, 253-5, 262, 263 

Planché, Gustave, 113 

Porter, the Dustman, 74, 75 

Pot Luck Club, The, 172-4 

Pringle, Thomas, 168, 177, 178 

Proverbial Philosophy, 191 

Prowitt, William, 156 


READE, Edmund, 188-90 

Reading, Cyrus, 173 

Recollection of Martin’s Deluge, 138 

Redgrave, R.A., Richard, 271 

Reform Club, The, 123 

Restoration of the Land 
Iguanodan, 130 

Return of Olivia, The, 97 

Revenge, 111 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 289 

Rhodes, Cecil, 74 

Richard, Ceur de Lion, 223 

Richardson, Dr. Benjamin, 199 

Richardson, Samuel, 76 

Ridley, Anne, 20 

Ridley, Bishop Nicholas, 65, 264 

Ridley, Nicholas, 20 


of the 





Roberts, Emma, 117 

Robinson, H., 167 

Rogers, Samuel, 169 

Rookwood, 124 

Rory O’ Moore, 117 

Rosa, Salvator, 71 

Royal Academy, The, 53, 57-61, 70, 
78, 79, 90, 93-5, 98, 111, 131, 
133-5, 144-6, 180, 182-4, 222, 261, 
271, 296-8 

Royal Institute, The, 184 

Rubens, Sir Peter Paul, 53 

Ruskin, John, 270, 271 

Russell, Lord John, 210 

Rylands, W. H., 261 


Sadok in Search of the Waters of 
Oblivion, 58, 65, 79, 80, 168 

St. Maur, Lady Charlotte, 164 

Sala, George Augustus, 259 

Salisbury, The Bishop of, 64 

Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, 77 

Sarvilia, Count, 141 

Scarisbrick, Charles, 63, 111, 146 

Scott, Sir Walter, 91-3, 120, 164 

Sedgwick, Professor, 130 

Sedley, Charles, 72 

Seventh Plague of Egypt, The, 110, 
IIr, 181 

Sewage Manure Company, The, 
202-4, 213 

Shakespeare, William, 188, 190, 191 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 118 

Shepherd, Ettrick, 177 

Siddons, Sarah, 81, 92, 100 

Shetches by Boz, 124 

Smith, The Rev. Sidney, 122, 123 

Smith, W. R., 158 

Soane’s Museum, 259 

Society of Arts, The, 26, 45 

Sopwith, Thomas, 199 





Index 


Southey, Robert, 158 

South Flank of Seizincot House, 90 

Sowerby, James de Carle, 74 

Soyer, M., 123 

Stebbing, 177, 180 

Steele, Sir Richard, 72 

Stephenson, George, 25, 228, 229 

Sterne and the Grisette, 97 

Stevenson, C. B., 160 

Stone, A.R.A., Frank, 127 

Stuart, Allan Hay, 92 

Stuart, John Sobieski, 92 

Survey of the Metropolis, 66 

Sutherland, the Duke and Duchess 
Gi, £95, 22%, 222 

Swinburne, Sir John, 204 

Syrvinw, 111 


TATE Gallery, The, 237, 252, 266, 
271 

Tenniel, Sir John, 170, 171, 261 

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 167 

Thames Embankment, The, 198- 
202, 206, 218, 260, 303, 304 

Thomas, Serjeant Ralph, 26, 27, 
45, 49, 57, 79, 83-5, 91, 93, 94, 98, 
103, 132-4, 137, 169, 174, 178, 
181, 214, 215, 217-9, 222-4, 
227230, 231, 233 

Thompson, Isabella, 20, 65 

Thomson, John, 157, 158 

Times, The, 183, 268 

Titian, 143 

Tom Bowling, 116 

Tom Jones, 72 

Toynbee, Josepb 169, 204, 205 

Tupper, Martin, 191-3, 204 

Turner, Charles, 150, 151 

Turner, J. M. W., 59, 71, 81, 84, 
87, 148, 150, 250, 255, 269, 270, 
271, 275, 292 


317 


Turpin, Dick, 122-4 
Two Studies from Nature, 111 


Valley of the Shadow of Death, The, 
158 

Van de Weet, M., 140 

Venus, 143 

Vestris, Madame, 74, 117 

Vicar of Wakefield, The, 97 

Victoria, Queen, 219, 235, 239, 268 

Victoria and Albert Museum, 90 

View of a Design for a National 
Monument to Commemorate the 
Battle of Waterloo, 90 

View of a Lane near Hampstead, 
78 

View of Kensington Gardens, 78 

View of the Entrance of Carisbrook 
Castle, 78, 79 

View of the Farm belonging to 
Seizincot House, 90 

View of the Fountain of Seizincot 
House, 90 

View of the Fountain, Temple and 
Cave in the Grounds of Sir C. 
Cockerell, Bart., M.P., 90 


WAAGEN, Professor, 273 
Waldegrave, The Earl of, 116 
Walpole, Horace, 116 

Warren Henry, 187 
Washington, George, 261 
Watson, Ralph, 234 

Watts, A. A., 168, 172 

Webb, Jane, 115, 117 

Welford, Richard, 25 
Wellington, The Duke of, 70, 89 
Wesley, Charles, 81 

West, Benjamin, 60, 70, 93, 290 
West, Raffaelle, 70 
Wheatstone, Sir Charles, 170, 226-8 





318 


Widow, The, 96 

Wilkes, John, 52 

Wilkie, Sir David, 99, 113, 157, 
158, 171, 274 

William IV., 53, 139, 144, 235, 236 

Williams (the Engraver), 157 

Willis, N. P., 97, 261 

Willmore, J. T., 167 

Wills, W. H., 243 

Wilson, Richard, 271 

Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas, 261, 
262 

Wilson (the Coachbuilder), 39, 40, 


42, 43 





Index 


Wonders of Geology, The, 130 

Wood, G. H., 252, 253 

Wood, Bart., M.P., Sir Matthew, 
260 

Woods, Sir William, 140 

Wortley, Lady Emmeline Stuart, 
164, 165 


YAaTEs, F. H., 117 

York, the Archbishop of, 230 
York, Cardinal, 92 

York and Lancaster, 117 
Young, Charles, 100, ror 


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